BackgroundBuilding on a series of higher educational arts/medicine initiatives, an interdisciplinary drawing module themed on the human body was developed for both year 3 Craft students and year 3 Medicine degree students. This became the subject of a research project exploring how the collaborative approach to drawing adopted on this module impacted on the students’ learning. In this article, emphasis is given to issues thought to have most potential relevance to medical education.MethodsUsing an ethnographic research design, the methods adopted were: direct observation of all aspects of the module sessions, audio and video recordings and photographs of the sessions, the incorporation of a semi-structured discussion at the end of each session, and anonymous student questionnaires.ResultsA number of key themes emerged. The complex, phased and multi-sensory nature of the ‘critical looking’ skills developed through the drawing exercises was seen as of potential value in medical education, being proposed as analogous to processes involved in clinical examination and diagnosis. The experience of interdisciplinary collaborative drawing was significant to the students as a creative, participatory and responsive form of learning. The emphasis on the physical experience of drawing and the thematic use of the human body as drawing subject led to reflective discussions about bodily knowledge and understanding. There were indications that students had a meta-cognitive awareness of the learning shifts that had occurred and the sessions provoked constructive self-reflective explorations of pre-professional identity.ConclusionsThis preliminary study suggests, through the themes identified, that there may be potential learning outcomes for medical students in this model of interdisciplinary collaborative drawing of the human body. Further research is needed to explore their applicability and value to medical education. There is a need to explore in more depth the beliefs, motivations and learning styles of medical students opting for the module, the significance and weighting of different learning and teaching elements in the module and the impact of the learning on medical students in the immediate post-module phase.

Drawing is as fundamental to the energy which makes us human as singing and dancing.

Drawing is taught in higher education across art and design but also, increasingly, in medical education, with a variety of aims and approaches. It is argued that there is a need, in both these disciplinary domains, to make more explicit the underpinning pedagogical approach to drawing and the impact that different approaches have on learning. The research described in this article focuses on an optional drawing course for undergraduate craft students and medical students. The course is run by the College of Arts and Humanities at a UK university and has a thematic focus on the human body. This qualitative case study sets out, in the context of selected theory about the teaching and learning of drawing, to explore what the learning impact of a particular collaborative model of teaching drawing was on a cross‐disciplinary student group. Findings included, with reference to Riley's framework of drawing pedagogies, that a range of philosophical and pedagogical ideas about drawing were blended from the teaching perspective in a way that enabled students from distinct disciplinary backgrounds to engage and learn. A shift was observed in students’ perceptions of drawing, with both sets of students questioning previously held assumptions about the use and value of drawing within their learning. Life drawing and anatomy laboratory drawing, in particular, provoked deep and challenging reflections about different cultural conceptions of the human body and the practice of collaborative drawing, with dialogic reflection, enabling insights to be developed into different disciplinary epistemologies.

How can we understand the pivotal value of touch and collaborative processes within two artists' drawing practice and how do we articulate the generative nature of such practice-based research? Bullen's drawing explores the relationship between hand, breath and surface, Fox's, the semi-resisted action of wind between paper and pencil. Both artists have a shared concern with non-representational drawing processes, an expanded notion of 'material' and a focus on the experience of reciprocity between the individual practitioner and the world in which they practice. These concerns are discussed in terms of 'being present' and 'making present', which this article attempts to conceptualise at an interim stage in the research with reference to theory about drawing, anthropology and meditation practice. The understanding of drawing mobilized here is one in which, as Grisewood argues, 'seeing' is not a prerequisite. It is a practice of drawing that is about receiving (Berger 2005) and being (Viola 1995). Lyon, Bullen and Fox are developing a collaborative methodology for this research in which their respective embodied, manual practices of drawing and writing are in dialogue.

Health professionals routinely draw for patients, carers and colleagues as part of clinical communication to describe, explain and record. The drawings that result are either discarded, kept by patients or become part of a patient’s records. Some health professionals also draw when engaged in teaching and training in clinical contexts. Very little literature has acknowledged that such drawing regularly takes place and there does not appear to have been formal research into the reasons, benefits or disadvantages of these drawing practices. This study examined the perceptions of seven UK health professionals, from different specialties, who draw as part of their daily professional practice. In this qualitative study, the researchers carried out in-depth individual interviews, during which they invited participants to make exemplar drawings. The findings included that for nearly all, drawing was a flexible, sensitive and spontaneous method of visualising information. In making explanatory drawings for patients, health professionals were taking care to provide information in a way that was accessible and personally relevant. While one participant indicated that ‘live’ drawing had been superseded by professionally illustrated material and video in their profession, the other participants believed that drawing remained the more practical, effective and emotionally appropriate method of visualising explanations. Health professionals convey and clarify knowledge for one another through drawing, yet it does not appear to be included in their training. Drawing was also described as useful and often pleasurable for the professionals themselves. Further research is now needed to explore patients’ perspectives on such drawing practices.