Using Art to Interpret Clinical Experience

Dr Lyndsey Boreham, Dr Lucy Dennison, Dr Pippa Fletcher, Dr Christopher Owen, Dr Samantha Scallan, Dr Louis Smith, Dr Kelly Thresher

Background
The role of art in helping trainees to reflect on their learning and development is acknowledged, but poorly understood.  An already over-crowded curriculum may emphasis the purely clinical nature of learning, and the opportunity to reflect on experience through other means may be limited. This innovative teaching session aimed to encourage foundation trainees to step outside the consulting room, and to reinterpret their clinical experiences through reflective writing about art.

Summary of Work
A group of foundation trainees (n.5), their tutor (KT) and a researcher (SS) visited the Wellcome Gallery, London. Whilst there, trainees were encouraged to seek out works of art which resonated with a clinical encounter or experience, and to write a reflective piece about one. The group met again in a follow up focus group, during which they discussed their writing and it’s impact on them as trainees and doctors.

Findings
A group of foundation trainees (n.5), their tutor (KT) and a researcher (SS) visited the Wellcome Gallery, London. Whilst there, trainees were encouraged to seek out works of art which resonated with a clinical encounter or experience, and to write a reflective piece about one. The group met again in a follow up focus group, during which they discussed their writing and it’s impact on them as trainees and doctors.

Conclusions
The strength of this session was that it was not a specific and focused supervised learning event, rather it offered the freedom for participants to link and construct their reflections on clinical practice as suited them at the time. The responsibility for learning was shared amongst all participants, and it opened up new areas for discussion and learning.