UMRA kicked off its fall programming with an engaging and insightful talk by Jon Hallberg, MD, about the practice of medicine as both art and science. Consistently named one of the top doctors in the Twin Cities, Hallberg is a professor in the University of Minnesota Medical School Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, creative director of the department’s Center for the Art of Medicine program, and medical director of the M Physicians Mill City Clinic. He is well-known for his many appearances on Minnesota Public Radio, his production of innovative live performances of Hippocrates Café, and his Emmy-award winning Twin Cities PBS (TPT) Art + Medicine series.

Hallberg described the evolution of his career and the experiences that led him to believe that the intersection of art and science in medicine can benefit patients and practitioners alike. 

As a medical student at the U with an interest in music and the humanities, he became aware of the many “physician hyphenates”—individuals who were something else besides physicians—including physician-musicians, physician-playwrights, physician-painters, physician-writers, and others. These were people with whom he worked, as well as famous figures including physician-poet William Carlos Williams and doctor-writer Anton Chekov. Hallberg noticed that the physician hyphenates around him seemed to be happy and appreciative of the humanity of their patients. He wanted to emulate them.

One of the people whom Hallberg particularly admired was Robert O. Fisch, MD, a pediatrician-artist and Holocaust survivor who taught in the Medical School and was a colleague of Hallberg’s in the Family Practice Clinic at the University. Fisch was a powerful role model of an empathetic clinician, a thoughtful teacher, and a talented artist.

The Family Practice Clinic was located within the confines of the brutalist architecture of the Phillips-Wangensteen Building on the East Bank of the Twin Cities Campus. Working there reinforced an idea that Hallberg had come to earlier while working in the interesting building of the old Smiley’s Point Clinic near the U of M on the West Bank: The physical environment in which medicine is practiced can affect the well-being of both patients and staff. 

A few years later, Hallberg had the opportunity to test this idea when the M Physicians group decided to open a clinic in downtown Minneapolis, and he was given the opportunity to help shape its design. The result was the Mill City Clinic located across from the Guthrie Theater. The clinic is an open and airy space, filled with soothing examination rooms, pleasant meeting spaces, and a rotating selection of original artwork. As medical director of the clinic, Hallberg has helped promulgate its design concepts to several other M Physicians clinics. 

The go-to physician for performing artists

Earlier, while working in an another downtown clinic, Hallberg was asked to attend to the medical needs of the traveling cast of Beauty and the Beast. Thereafter, he became the go-to physician for visiting performers and local arts groups including the Minnesota Orchestra. 

His association with performers helped him develop Hippocrates Café—live, one-hour shows that placed complex healthcare topics in context through story and song. Each unique show featured a theme that actors, musicians, and storytellers explored in front of live audiences. Over a decade, more than 100 shows were performed in eight states, in venues including the Cleveland Clinic, the Mayo Clinic, the Minnesota State Fair, and Stanford University.  

Unable to perform to live audiences during the pandemic, Hallberg pivoted Hippocrates Café to video production. In collaboration with TPT, he and his colleagues developed a four-part series called Art + Medicine. Two of these programs, “Reflections on the Pandemic” and “Speaking of Race,” earned regional Emmy Awards and were distributed nationally. 

Also during the pandemic, Jakub Tolar, MD, PhD, dean of the Medical School, asked Hallberg to help develop the school’s Center for the Art of Medicine. The center’s mission is “to elevate the role of the arts and humanities in medical education and clinical practice in order to nurture curiosity and creativity, promote diversity, deepen empathy, develop professionalism, and foster resilience in physicians and physicians-in-training.”  

One of the center’s programs is Hippocrates Café Productions, which has produced a “How to Care” video that has been submitted to a number of film festivals including Sundance, South by Southwest, and Aspen Shortsfest.

Thanks to innovative faculty like Jon Hallberg and programs like the Center for the Art of Medicine, the U of M Department of Family Medicine and Community Health was recently named the #1 family medicine program in National Institutes of Health funding. The department is working to ensure that Minnesota will have a good supply of primary care physicians who are skillful not only in the science of medicine but also in the art of medicine.

—Ron Matross, UMRA Program Committee member and past president (2022–23)