Art for Healing: Fostering Creativity and Compassion in Medical Education

A physician\u27s career is shaped by a need for constant learning and adapting to the world around them. Similarly, the medical school curriculum is ever evolving in order to train and shape medical students into the best physicians they can become. In recent years, the search has shifted to a need for the well-rounded physician: one not only with medical competency, but also skills of effective communication, interpersonal skills, problem solving skills, critical thinking skills, emotional intelligence, and empathy. Although the visual arts has been used as a teaching tool throughout centuries, it still has not officially become part of medical education. To explore how the implementation of visual arts into the medical school curriculum can aid in medical student’s development as physicians by improving their observational skills, analytical skills in clinical environments, critical thinking, creativity, emotional intelligence, and empathy. A structured analysis of current literature was performed to understand the relationship between visual arts and its uses on enhancing medical school education. This literature review used PubMed, NCBI, and ScienceDirect as primary databases. Search terms included: visual art and medical education; medical curriculum; fine art; medical humanities; and visual thinking strategies. Additional terms were included as needed. Studies showed that implementation of visual art into medical student’s training was found to improve their observational skills in clinically purposeful ways in medical schools. Studies also showed that the use of visual art helped build students’ visual literacy skills. Implementing visual art into the medical school curriculum has the potential to be a great tool in training the next generation of well-rounded physicians. Upon further research and application into current medical schools curricula, incorporating the visual arts into medical education can become an established and essential component of the training of a physician