Art Room: Further information

‘The whole art of medicine is in observation’ ~ William Osler

Healthcare is both an art and a science. The study of works of art can be a powerful learning strategy and one that can help healthcare students become more adept at engaging with emotional narratives and less likely to make assumptions about people (Klugman, Beckmann-Mendez, 2015). Empathy requires imagination, respectful curiosity, and deliberate attention to reading people’s non-verbal communication such as the subtle nuances of their facial expressions and body language. An emerging body of research has identified that the study of works of art fosters these skills and more. Students presented with opportunities to study the arts also have higher levels of empathy, critical thinking, self-awareness, tolerance of ambiguity, and emotional intelligence, and lower levels of compassion fatigue (Mangione, 2018).

Healthcare professionals are expected to have social and cultural competencies as well as knowledge and skills. However, teaching students how pay full attention to ‘the whole person’ rather than the disease or healthcare technologies/procedures, and to become skilled at visually differentiating what is important, while at the same time recognising the moral dimensions of care, can be challenging. Over the past twenty years, there has been growing interest in the use of health humanities as a way of addressing these concerns. Raising students’ awareness of the emotional and ethical dimensions of healthcare and the capacity for critical observation and deep thinking should become a defining part of university education for all healthcare students (Gaunt, 2017).

While there is sometimes a perception among educators that integration of learning about the arts into curricula that are already overflowing can be too difficult. However, the reviews and ideas provided in the Art Room illustrate creative strategies for complementing traditional educational approaches in seamless, effective and meaningful ways. One of these approaches is titled Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS).

Visual Thinking Strategies

Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) enhance skills in aesthetic meaning making and visual literacy. This approach allows learners to answer open ended questions about the content and meaning of specific works of art and to discuss their emerging ideas with fellow students (Housen, 2002). VTS improves the ability to ‘decode’ the meanings and subtle nuances in paintings and to disentangle what each piece of art is communicating by learning to think aloud. The three questions typically asked in VTS are:

What do you see/what is going on?
What do you see that makes you think that?
What more do you see?”

As students become increasingly familiar with and confident in discussing art, their responses to these questions will become more and more sophisticated.

Guidelines for the VTS process:

Create a comfortable setting for the discussion – The questions are designed to elicit diverse views without being confrontational.
Show the image to students (projecting onto a screen is better than each student having their own printed copy).
Allow students a few minutes to examine the art work before asking questions.
Do not provide the title, artist, history or background of the painting – let students interpret the images on their own at first.
After a few minutes ask, ‘What’s going on in this picture?’ When students respond, paraphrase what is said or ask for further detail or clarification.
If a student makes an interpretive remark ask, ‘What do you see that makes you say that?’
To elicit responses from as many students as possible ask, ‘What more do you see?’
Avoid asking leading questions and allow students make their own discoveries.
Encourage all students to speak, as much of the learning comes through the process of thinking aloud.
Ensure that you value each students’ contribution, irrespective of the originality, complexity, or accuracy of the response.
Resist the temptation to correct students who seem to have misinterpreted the meaning of the painting.
Let the discussion continue for about fifteen minutes or until the students seem to have run out of things to say.

References

Gaunt, H. (2017). Teaching doctors empathy through art. Retrieved November 10, 2018 from: https://www.artshub.com.au/education/news-article/features/arts-education/heather-gaunt/teaching-doctors-empathy-through-art-252937

Housen, A. (2002). Aesthetic thought, critical thinking and transfer. Arts Learning Journal, 18,1.

Klugman, C. & Beckmann-Mendez, D. (2015). One Thousand Words: Evaluating an Interdisciplinary Art Education Program. Journal of Nursing Education, 54(4), 220

Mangione, S. et al. (2018). Medical students’ exposure to the humanities correlates with positive personal qualities and reduced burnout: a multi-institutional US survey. Journal of General Internal Medicine. 33(5), 628–63.