The Fine Art of Health Care: Visual Thinking Strategies for Interprofessional Skills Development in Graduate Nurse Anesthesia Education

Abstract

Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) is a methodology designed to teach critical thinking, communication, and visual literacy. The Fine Art of Health Care is a VTS-based educational program that brings students from various health-care disciplines to the Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami in Florida. Twenty-six nurse anesthesia, medical, physical therapy, nursing, and psychology students participated in the workshop during the 2016 fall semester. The students completed an anonymous survey to evaluate their experience. All participants agreed or strongly agreed that VTS helped them understand how to hone their observational and listening skills; 92% agreed that looking at and discussing art has merit with regards to collaborative practice; 96% agreed that VTS helped them improve their communication skills; and 93% found value in the VTS workshop because it provided opportunity to meet and have discussions with students from other disciplines. The arts and humanities have long been recognized as important tools for building multidisciplinary collaboration in health education. There is growing evidence that integrating the arts into the nursing curriculum can have powerful outcomes. These capabilities proved useful in the nurse anesthesia curriculum by allowing skillful conceptualization, and originality and leveling of the playing field for all health-care students.

Insights Into Learning Among Physical Therapy, Medical, and Nursing Students Following a Simulation-Based, Interprofessional Patient Safety Course

“…Unique features of the course included two non-clinical activities, the first being The Fine Art of Healthcare (FAoHC) workshop developed and run by the university's art museum faculty which teaches visual thinking strategies (VTS). VTS uses art as a platform to develop critical thinking, communication, and observation skills [25]. Embedded in the FAoHC is an exercise where following example setting by the art museum faculty, participants take turns as a lead facilitator using methods taught.…”

Arts and Humanities to Teach Civility in Health Professions

“…Pdf_Folio:242 opinions of others, and self-awareness of personal views (Mitzova-Vladinov & Torrents, 2020). Visual art eased emotionally charged topics for students in medical school by providing a "surrogate for self" that allowed students to reflect on their responses and behaviors without feeling threatened (Byars et al, 2015, p. 90).…”

Visual thinking strategies for interprofessional education and promoting collaborative competencies

“…Although arts and humanities are being incorporated into undergraduate medical and nursing education, there is limited integration of the health humanities into broader IPE curricula or in the education of other allied health professionals 7,8 . Within the spectrum of health humanities frameworks, Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), an inquiry‐based pedagogical approach developed by psychologist Abigail Housen and art museum educator Philip Yenawine, has been shown to improve learners' powers of observation, enhance communication skills and increase team‐building when students work together to analyse works of art 9–13 . In 2021, we designed an IPE session using a VTS‐based exercise as a new approach to anchor discussions for our learners; the session goals and learning objectives are outlined in Box 1.…”