- Barbara H., Patient
About the Firefly Project
Created in 1992 by Cindy Perlis, former Director of Art for Recovery, the Firefly Project is a unique and powerful educational experience that brings adults living with cancer together with UCSF medical and nursing students through a monthly exchange of letters.
Through handwritten or typed letters, students and patients share their lives, experiences, challenges, hopes, and perspectives. Participants are also invited to include creative expressions, such as drawings, music, poetry, collages, recipes, or cartoons, allowing them to connect beyond the traditional roles of patient and healthcare provider.
Unlike classroom learning or clinical observation, the Firefly Project gives future healthcare providers a rare opportunity to develop a deeply personal understanding of the patient experience. Students learn firsthand about the realities of living with serious illness, navigating uncertainty, undergoing treatment, facing fear, and maintaining identity and hope. Just as importantly, they learn how to ask difficult questions, listen with compassion, and become more comfortable engaging in honest and meaningful conversations.
By creating a relationship outside the clinical setting, the project helps students develop greater empathy, communication skills, and a more compassionate bedside manner; lessons they carry with them throughout their medical careers. Patients, in turn, have the opportunity to be heard, share their expertise, and help shape the next generation of healthcare providers.
At the conclusion of the program, Art for Recovery hosts a Healing Service, where patients and students meet in person for the first time. The Firefly Project demonstrates the profound impact that genuine human connection can have on both patient care and medical education, helping to cultivate more compassionate physicians and nurses and, ultimately, contributing to a more humane future for medicine.
Important Dates:
Firefly Project Application: Email [email protected]
August: Sign ups
October: 1st letters go out
May: Healing Service, meet your pen pal in person