Ted Meyer

Artist, curator, and patient advocate Ted Meyer finds artistic inspiration in the adversity of the patient experience. ITed shares how communicating patients' stories through art can help healthcare providers to gain a more complete understanding of their patients' pain, loneliness, and frustration.

Keynote speech - A Patient Life This lecture discusses Meyer’s personal experience as both a patient and an artist. The presentation first focuses on what it feels like to anticipate an early death and the wonder of being given a second lease on life—a life with a normal life expectancy. He then discusses the subsequent readjustment of his life’s priorities and the responsibility of using his additional “time” in a meaningful way. Meyer then turns from his personal story to the stories of other survivors, particularly those featured in his “Scarred for Life, Every Scar Tells a Story” art documentation project. He explains the insights he gained while creating “Scarred for Life”, which led him to become the first Artist in Residence at UCLA and USC medical School. Meyer’s lecture concludes with his experience as a medical school Resident Artist, a position that involves curating exhibitions by both artists and patients as a way of teaching the patient experience to medical student

"Scarred for Life" Re-framing Traumatic Medical Experiences through the Creative Process. n addition to creating art that relates to his own physical condition, Meyer’s work also illustrates how other patient/artists live with rare diseases and permanent disabilities. This presentation discusses how health problems affect every aspect of one’s life, including work, family relationships, and planning for the future, and how those plans can change in unforeseen ways.