Dive Brief:
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Some medical schools include classes on art to help teach doctors in training how to be more thoughtful and better observers, according to a New York Times article by Dr. Dhruv Khullar, a resident physician at Massachusetts General Hospital.
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Yale medical students who took an art class intended to help them collect and relay visual information were 10% more likely to notice important details about their patients.
- Harvard medical students who took a similar art class made 38% more observations on visual skills examinations of patients than those who didn’t.
Dive Insight:
Clinicians require strong observation skills and art classes can help to build these. Incorporating drama, dance, and literature into medical train can also help medical students become empathetic and reflective doctors, the Boston Globe reported.
A growing number of medical schools are including art in their curriculum to some degree. In addition to Harvard and Yale, medical schools at Columbia University, Washington University, and Pennsylvania State University all work humanities into their student’s schedules, according to the Boston Globe. These courses aren’t limited to visual art. They can also include classes in fiction writing, obituary writing, and comics.
Dr. Khullar provides some stats on the ways art can help medical students, but he also notes how art lessons personally helped him to, for instance, better examine an X-ray showing pneumonia or to physically describe a patient’s blisters to his peers.
Courses in art don’t just help medical students improve observation skills. They can help doctors to be more compassionate, Dr. Khullar wrote. “In an era of proton beams and immunotherapies, art can help doctors hit the pause button — and refocus our attention on the patient. It reminds us that while medicine and technology prolong life, beauty and meaning make life worth living.”