Thursday, December 1, 2011

Art in Science for Doctors

Students, not only do we have an arts integrated school, but medical schools are beginning to follow the trend as well. 



Art helps medical students enhance powers of observation

Can looking at art help future doctors and nurses do a better job with patients?
Officials at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio say the answer is yes. They have teamed up with the McNay Art Museum in the Alamo City to offer Art Rounds, a three-week workshop this winter aimed at training future doctors and nurses to look carefully at an artwork and “avoid being misguided by assumptions.”
artrounds.jpg
A study of the program, now in its second year, showed that the students had a marked improvement in their “visual observation and communication skills, which can lead to improved patient care,” said a news release from the school.
What a patient says about their condition and the way they appear can be very different. Medical professionals sometimes must rely on subtle clues to assess what’s wrong.
“Much like in medicine, the issues we find in artwork may be more complex than they first seem,” said Rose Glennon, senior museum educator. “When a student says they think the subject of a painting feels a certain way, we ask them to tell us what they see that makes them think that. Different people see and notice different things.”
The workshop encourages students to be more comfortable with ambiguity and avoid jumping to conclusions, officials said.
“Medicine has become increasingly reliant on test results and technology so that patients become nothing more than a set of lab values on a computer screen,” said Craig Klugman, assistant director and professor of medical humanities at the university’s Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics. “We need to train physicians to actually see the patient as a whole, rather than reducing the patient to a particular organ, tissue, or lab result.”
For some students, Art Rounds marked their first visit ever to a museum.

2 comments:

  1. That's so cool I like this information

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  2. I think it's good that math isn't just math and art isn't just art. This study is perect for those who aren't sure what to do with their lives. :) Yay! More choices!!

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