If so, I’d love to hear from you!
I’m planning to moderate a plenary on the research produced by collaborations between art museums and medical schools at the Arts Education Partnership National Forum with speakers Irwin Braverman, MD, and Diana Beckmann-Mendez, PhD, RN, FNP-BC. Braverman and Beckmann-Mendez will speak about their research and experiences using art interventions in nursing and medical education. It should be a compelling discussion on medicine’s complex needs, research on arts impact, and the role of arts organizations in redressing blindspots in education.
In planning for this, it has been wonderful to get to interview the museum educators who collaborate with the panel’s speakers: Linda Friedlaender at the Yale Center for British Art, and Kate Carey at the McNay Art Museum. Each of them spoke to the unique benefits and challenges of doing this work, and have helped me better understand their respective museum’s actions in creating partnerships that work. I would love to talk with more museum educators as well. Are you engaged in work with healthcare professionals? Does work with medical education tie into your museum’s mission? Why – how – or why not? What are the challenges and benefits of this work? How would you advise others?
I am particularly excited at this plenary’s opportunity to expand the reach of this work – including raising the visibility of the unique kind of impact museum educators can make. My hope is that sharing this research can provide tools for advocacy, research, and partnership for all kinds of arts organizations committed to community. The audience at this conference will largely be arts educators across the arts disciplines, from the performing arts to the studio to the galleries. So many kinds of practitioners and leaders in the arts education field! What do you think arts educators will find most helpful about this educational movement among art museums and medical schools?
Please weigh in either in comments (below), tweet @ArtsPractica, or email. Thank you!
Kate Carey working with UT Health Science Center students in nursing and medicine, McNay Art Museum
5 Responses to “Are you an art museum educator who works with medical education?”
Hi Alexa, I am Curator of Academic Programs (Research) at the Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne, Australia. I am establishing visual arts based education programs for medical and dental students here at the University, a completely new initiative for the university museum, the University, and (I believe) the first time it’s been done in Australia. We began in June this year, and have trialed a very successful 2 hour pilot seminar based on Braverman’s visual observation sessions for senior palliative care students with senior clinician from a local cancer hospital. Since then, I’ve worked on adapting the session to include a more empathic focus for Special Needs Dentistry students, with postgrad cohorts and 2nd year graduate students, with the full 2nd year cohort of 84 students doing the 2 hour seminar this semester split over a number of groups. We are planning to trial embedding the program into aspects of the medical curriculum next year, while also doing focussed qualitative evaluation of all the sessions as we go, so that we have good data to argue for more substantial embedding in the future.
I was fortunate to get a university grant that will enable me to come to the USA for a few weeks in February next year to observe sessions and meet with key people, in the Harvard/Yale/Cleveland areas. I was wondering if it would be possible for me to meet with you, share ideas, and possibly observe some of your sessions?
Looking forward to hearing from you. Kind regards,
Heather
Look forward to seeing you this spring, Heather!
Hi,
I am planning on doing a “Learning to Look” type workshop at a conference in two weeks for the Society of Quality Assurance folks, the ones who look at all the data in drug trials to see if the drug should be approved or not, if the test site followed protocols, etc. I have been doing museum education for over 20 years (full time in museums at first, now as a consultant) and am excited about the prospect of how the skills we teach in the museum can cross over to another discipline. However, I am also a bit nervous about the audience and choosing art that is appropriate for them. Would love to talk more with you about this, and get any advice you have on how to structure the workshop, etc.
Thanks!
Claudia Ocello
President & CEO, Museum Partners Consulting LLC
Hi Claudia, I’d be happy to talk image selection – have faith in all you already know! Is the big issue they want to get at the reality of bias in science? If so select works that are particularly revealing of biases and differences of opinion within a group, but would need to know more. Interesting TED talk on this topic… http://blog.ted.com/2012/09/27/5-prescription-drugs-doctors-had-no-idea-could-hurt-their-patients/
The MFAH traveling exhibitions extend the experience of original works of art beyond the museum’s walls. The MFAH offers one of the most unique learning environments in our city—a crossroad of cultures across time and around the world that mirror the capacity of the human spirit to invent, to create, and to dream. This capacity transcends nationalities, cultures, language, and time itself, making the MFAH A Place for All People. In 2010, the MFAH inaugurated the A Place for All People annual awards in recognition of partners whose mission, goals, and work reflect and complement those of the MFAH. “Like the MFAH, HCPL values lifelong learning and embraces the uniqueness of informal education settings throughout the community that position art as the portal for meaningful, interesting experiences that connect the visual arts to peoples’ lives,” said Dr. Victoria Ramirez, W.T. and Louise J. Moran Education Director at the MFAH.