The Online "Personal Responses Tour": Adapting an Art Museum-Based Activity for a Virtual Setting

Transformative experiences at art museums to support flourishing in medicine

PURPOSE

We implemented and evaluated a hybrid 4-week arts-based elective for clinical medical students to support flourishing.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Five students participated in early 2022. Twelve sessions occurred in-person at art museums and other cultural centers, and five occurred online. Sessions incorporated varied arts-based learning activities, including Visual Thinking Strategies, a jazz seminar, and a mask-making workshop. We evaluated the course via weekly reflective essays, interviews 6 weeks after the course, and pre-post surveys that included four scales with clinical relevance: capacity for wonder (CfW), tolerance for ambiguity (TFA), interpersonal reactivity index, and openness to diversity.

RESULTS

Qualitatively, the course helped learners: 1) reconnect with individual characteristics and interests that had been neglected during medical education; 2) better appreciate others' perspectives; 3) develop identities as physicians; and 4) engage in quiet reflection, renewing their sense of purpose. Quantitatively, pre-post mean totals increased for the CfW (32.0 [SD 6.8] vs 44.0 [SD 5.7], p=.006) and TFA scales (16.4 [SD 5.2] vs 24.2 [SD 6.9], p=.033).

CONCLUSIONS

This elective facilitated learners' connecting with themselves, others, and their profession with improvement in clinically-relevant measures. This provides further evidence that arts-based education can foster professional identity formation and be transformative for students.

How to design and implement a Group Poem activity

Museum-based learning activities provide interactive and innovative ways to integrate the arts and humanities into medical education. Like other museum-based activities, the Group Poem supports the development of multiple clinically relevant skills and attributes, such as observation, communication, perspective-taking, empathy, and implicit bias awareness. In this paper, we present a step-by-step guide for educators seeking to design and implement a museum-based Group Poem activity for medical learners. The overall 'task' of the activity is for learners to collectively create a poem that they perform for others, a process that participants find to be engaging and meaningful to their formation as physicians. In this paper, we provide specific directions on pre-selecting the works of art, preparing the supplies, dividing into small groups, providing iterative instructions to learners, managing the timing of the session, and debriefing the activity. Although designed to be experienced in an art museum, we note that the Group Poem activity can also be conducted in the classroom or virtually using photographic or digital reproductions of artwork.

The Harvard Macy Institute Art Museum-based Health Professions Education Fellowship: Transformational faculty development through the arts

Museum-based education for health professionals can lead to a variety of important learning outcomes within the domain of skills development, personal insight, perspective-taking and social advocacy. The Harvard Macy Institute's Art Museum-based Health Professions Education Fellowship was designed to develop faculty expertise in art museum-based practices, encourage scholarship, and cultivate a cohesive and supportive community of educators. The Fellowship was piloted from January to May 2019 with twelve interprofessional Fellows. Two in-person experiential sessions were held at Boston-area museums with intervening virtual learning. Fellows were introduced to a variety of approaches used in art museum-based education and developed a project for implementation at their home institution. A qualitative formative evaluation assessed immediate and 6-month post-Fellowship outcomes. Outcomes are reported in four categories: (1) Fellows' personal and professional development; (2) Institutional projects and curriculum development; (3) Community of practice and scholarly advancement of the field; and (4) Development of Fellowship model. A follow-up survey was performed four years after the conclusion of the pilot year, documenting Fellows' significant accomplishments in museum-based education, reflections on the Fellowship and thoughts on the future of the field.

Applying the Prism Model to design arts and humanities medical curricula

The arts and humanities (A&H) play a fundamental role in medical education by supporting medical learners' development of core competencies. Like all medical curricula, those integrating the A&H are more likely to achieve the desired outcomes when the learning domains, goals, objectives, activities, and evaluation strategies are well-aligned. Few faculty development programs focus on helping medical educators design A&H curricula in a scholarly manner. The Prism Model, an evidence-based tool, supports educators developing A&H medical curricula in a rigorous way for maximum impact. The model posits that the A&H can serve four pedagogical functions for medical learners: 1) skill mastery, 2) perspective taking, 3) personal insight, and 4) social advocacy. Although this model has been described in the literature, no practical guidance exists for medical educators seeking to apply it to the development of a specific curriculum. This paper provides a step-by-step demonstration of how to use the Prism Model to design an A&H curriculum. Beginning with the first step of selecting a learning domain through the final step of curriculum evaluation, this paper helps medical educators apply the Prism Model to develop A&H curricula with intentionality and rigour to achieve the desired learning outcomes.

What's art got to do with it?-Transfer of learning in museum-based health professions education

Museum-based education for health professionals is a rich and expanding field in which educators engage health professions learners in arts-based activities intentionally designed to support transfer of learning from a museum to a clinical context. Museum-based education for health professionals promotes several key learning outcomes including: mastery of core skills such as observation, interpretation, and communication; cultivating personal insight; fostering appreciation for multiple perspectives; opening avenues to explore social advocacy; and promoting wellness. Following a museum-based activity, translational facilitators guide learners through a debriefing process which supports the discovery of real-world connections to clinical teaching, learning, and care delivery. Translational debriefing involves practices such as attending to psychological safety, using reflective listening and open-ended questions, practicing cultural humility, maintaining neutrality, and modeling curiosity. These translational opportunities can also help participants who are themselves health professions educators gain insights into their own teaching practices and provide new tools to incorporate, including bedside teaching strategies and innovative ways to facilitate small group learning.

Design, implementation, and reflections on a two-week virtual visual arts and medicine course for third- and fourth-year medical students

BACKGROUND

Medical humanities courses that incorporate the visual arts traditionally require in-person instruction and visits to museums. The COVID-19 pandemic afforded medical educators a unique opportunity to implement and evaluate virtual visual arts programming.

METHODS

A two-week, 7-module visual arts and medicine elective course for third and fourth-year medical students was conducted virtually in the Spring of 2021. The course included traditional didactic components as well as a range of hands-on creative art activities including painting, graphic medicine, photovoice, and Kintsugi (Japanese craft). Digital tools including Canvas, Google Jamboard, and Zoom facilitated student engagement. Student feedback was collected through anonymous post-course surveys.

RESULTS

We successfully conducted a virtual visual arts and medicine elective which integrated hands-on creative art activities. Most students "strongly agreed" that remote instruction was sufficient to meet course objectives. However, all students also "agreed" that in-person instruction may promote more in-depth engagement with the visual arts. The hands-on creative art activities were appreciated by all students.

CONCLUSION

Visual arts-based medical humanities courses can be delivered virtually and can include hands-on creative art activities such as painting. Future visual arts and medicine courses may benefit from incorporating a range of pedagogical methodologies, digital tools, control groups, and pre-/post-course assessments.