How Visiting an Art Museum Can Help Students Become More Patient Healthcare Providers
Fifteen to thirty seconds.
And how long does it typically take for a physician to interrupt a patient?
Even less than that — eleven to twenty-three seconds.
This is one reason why the Re-Imagining Medicine (ReMed) program takes its Duke student fellows to the North Carolina Museum of Art every year. Through closely observing works of art and connecting them to their own stories, these pre-health students learn valuable lessons about taking the time to really listen to patients — better preparing them to slow down in a system that is constantly pushing healthcare workers to speed up.
Through ReMed, an interdisciplinary team of professors and professionals at the intersections of medicine, ethics, religion, the arts, and humanities helps students explore themes often absent in traditional medical education. The program begins with an immersive week at Duke and continues throughout the summer with weekly remote sessions, in which students continue to reflect on program themes as they complete an internship or another experience related to health care.
During ReMed’s immersive week, Ike led the fellows through a series of exercises at the art museum, encouraging them to reflect on their own stories as well as the stories of the patients they will serve as healthcare providers.
Starting in a private room at the museum, Ike first asked the students to reflect on their own identities. The challenge: they had to describe who they were in only six words. Students wrote their words on sticky notes and attached them somewhere on their bodies. They walked around, found someone they hadn’t talked to yet, and asked about one of the six aspects of their identity. After two minutes of sharing, they switched places, and the other student explained one of their words.
In their final activity, the students discussed “Isla (Tierra Prometida),” a mixed media work that depicts the ocean with thousands of fish hooks. The Cuban artist, Yoan Capote, relates the sea to the Iron Curtain of World War II and the separation between Cuba and its surrounding nations. Ike asked the ReMed students to reflect on a boundary in their life, either physical or metaphorical, and how they have dealt with it or are still dealing with it.
When the students discussed what they learned from their time in the art museum, their responses included active listening, the importance of stories and identities, viewing patients as a work of art, and learning to pay attention to the details instead of rushing to conclusions.
Aditi Avinash, a rising junior studying ethics and health policy, history, and medicine through Program II, says she’s loved her experience in the ReMed program so far.
“So much of the medicine is lost in the science,” she said. “Medicine isn’t designed to cure a disease; it’s meant to treat people.”
