Dataset Information

Transformative experiences at art museums to support flourishing in medicine.

ABSTRACT:

Purpose

We implemented and evaluated a hybrid 4-week arts-based elective for clinical medical students to support flourishing.

Materials and methods

Five students participated in early 2022. Twelve sessions occurred in-person at art museums and other cultural centers, and five occurred online. Sessions incorporated varied arts-based learning activities, including Visual Thinking Strategies, a jazz seminar, and a mask-making workshop. We evaluated the course via weekly reflective essays, interviews 6 weeks after the course, and pre-post surveys that included four scales with clinical relevance: capacity for wonder (CfW), tolerance for ambiguity (TFA), interpersonal reactivity index, and openness to diversity.

Results

Qualitatively, the course helped learners: 1) reconnect with individual characteristics and interests that had been neglected during medical education; 2) better appreciate others' perspectives; 3) develop identities as physicians; and 4) engage in quiet reflection, renewing their sense of purpose. Quantitatively, pre-post mean totals increased for the CfW (32.0 [SD 6.8] vs 44.0 [SD 5.7], p=.006) and TFA scales (16.4 [SD 5.2] vs 24.2 [SD 6.9], p=.033).

Conclusions

This elective facilitated learners' connecting with themselves, others, and their profession with improvement in clinically-relevant measures. This provides further evidence that arts-based education can foster professional identity formation and be transformative for students.

SUBMITTER: Tackett S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10120547 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Transformative experiences at art museums to support flourishing in medicine.

Tackett Sean S Eller Lauren L Scharff Samuel S Balhara Kamna S KS Stouffer Kaitlin M KM Suchanek Melissa M Clever Sarah L SL Yenawine Philip P Wolffe Suzy S Chisolm Margaret S MS

Medical education online 20231201 1

<h4>Purpose</h4>We implemented and evaluated a hybrid 4-week arts-based elective for clinical medical students to support flourishing.<h4>Materials and methods</h4>Five students participated in early 2022. Twelve sessions occurred in-person at art museums and other cultural centers, and five occurred online. Sessions incorporated varied arts-based learning activities, including Visual Thinking Strategies, a jazz seminar, and a mask-making workshop. We evaluated the course via weekly reflective e ...[more]

PMID: 37074677

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Project description:In response to the mental health crisis in science, and amid concerns about the detrimental effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on scientists, this study seeks to identify the role of a heretofore under-researched factor for flourishing and eudaimonia: aesthetic experiences in scientific work. The main research question that this study addresses is: To what extent is the frequency of encountering aesthetics in terms of beauty, awe, and wonder in scientific work associated with greater well-being among scientists? Based on a large-scale (N = 3,061) and representative international survey of scientists (biologists and physicists) in four countries (India, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States), this study employs sets of nested regressions to model the associations of aesthetic experiences with flourishing while controlling for demographic factors and negative workplace and life circumstances such as burnout, job/publication pressure, mistreatment, COVID-19 impacts, other stressful life events, serious psychological distress, and chronic health conditions. The results show that the frequency of aesthetic experiences in scientific work in the disciplines of biology and physics has a very large and statistically significant association with flourishing and eudaimonia that remains robust even when controlling for demographic factors and negative workplace and life circumstances, including COVID-19 impacts. Aesthetic experiences in scientific work are even as strongly associated with flourishing as the presence of serious psychological distress and are most strongly associated with the flourishing domain of meaning in life, thus pointing to a link with eudaimonic well-being. In line with neurophysiological evidence and positive psychological models of flow, self-transcendence, and intrinsic motivation, aesthetics are a key source of flourishing for scientists in the disciplines of biology and physics. While future research needs to test the causal mechanism, the strength of the findings could encourage leaders of scientific labs and research organizations generally to remove obstacles to experiencing the aesthetic dimensions of science. Fostering cultures in which the aesthetic experiences that are intrinsic to scientific practice are fully appreciated might potentially protect or boost flourishing by reducing the impacts of burnout, job/publication pressure, and mistreatment-related experiences in science.

Dataset Information

Transformative experiences at art museums to support flourishing in medicine.

Purpose

Materials and methods

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Transformative experiences at art museums to support flourishing in medicine.

Similar Datasets

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