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Anatomy as Artwork: 16 Medical Paintings and Sketches
Editor: Jennifer Leavitt | May 18, 2017
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A Brain for Art and for Medicine
Image artwork/copyright of Lauren Squires
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Anatomy as Artwork: 16 Medical Paintings and Sketches
Editor: Jennifer Leavitt | May 18, 2017 | Contributor Information
A Brain for Art and for Medicine
Medicine and the arts have a common goal, Therese Southgate, MD, once told Medscape. As a senior contributing editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, the question she encountered most often was, "Why art on the cover of a medical journal? What has medicine to do with art?"
"They have a common substrate," she responded, "the physical, visible world of matter." But what is even more significant, she pointed out, "are the similar qualities of mind, body, and spirit demanded of the practitioners of each, painter and physician."
"Chief among them is an eye: the ability not only to observe, but to observe keenly—to ferret out the tiny detail from the jumble of facts, lines, colors—the tiny detail that unlocks a painting or a patient's predicament."
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Learning Science Through Art
Image artwork/copyright of Sunrise Waldorf School
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Anatomy as Artwork: 16 Medical Paintings and Sketches
Editor: Jennifer Leavitt | May 18, 2017 | Contributor Information
Learning Science Through Art
In recent years, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and other medical schools have launched initiatives to integrate the arts into medical training in order to produce more reflective, empathic, observant physicians.
But the arts can enhance both scientific learning and empathy well before the college years. The chalkboard illustration above is typical of an anatomy and physiology lesson in a Waldorf school classroom, where students write and illustrate their own textbooks as a key part of the learning process from grades K through 12.
According to an article in the journal CBE Life Science Education, "the drawing of visual representations is important for learners and scientists alike, such as the drawing of models to enable visual model-based reasoning. Yet few biology instructors recognize drawing as a teachable science process skill."
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Learning Through Drawing
Image artwork/copyright of Henry James
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Anatomy as Artwork: 16 Medical Paintings and Sketches
Editor: Jennifer Leavitt | May 18, 2017 | Contributor Information
Learning Through Drawing
University of Waterloo researchers recently discovered that drawing pictures of information is a far more reliable strategy for remembering it.
"We pitted drawing against a number of other known encoding strategies," lead study author and PhD candidate Jeffrey Wammes told Scientific American, "but drawing always came out on top." Wammes said that his team believes that the integration of visual, motor, and semantic information "forms a more cohesive memory trace."
Another study, reported in Psychological Science, found that students who used longhand as opposed to typing on a laptop not only retained more information but also understood it more deeply.
The labeled illustration above is from the self-made lesson book of an 8th grade student.
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Connections in Art and Medicine
Image artwork/copyright of Housatonic Valley Waldorf School, Class of 2018
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Anatomy as Artwork: 16 Medical Paintings and Sketches
Editor: Jennifer Leavitt | May 18, 2017 | Contributor Information
Connections in Art and Medicine
Seventh-grade students created these wood block prints during anatomy and physiology studies.
Students at the secondary level tend to have more mobility and independence, which often means that there are a variety of options to explore. In a previous Medscape article about medical school and the arts, Sarah Averill, MD, said, "Even without access to arts-based programming," students "can join national organizations and conferences that blend medicine and art. These conferences, programs, and poets provide a good place to start."
Dr Averill recommended the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities for starters, but she encourages students to keep an eye out for resources that may be available. "Medicine and the arts are intertwined in complex and evolving ways," she reflected.
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A Dual Passion
Image artwork/copyright of Lauren Squires
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Anatomy as Artwork: 16 Medical Paintings and Sketches
Editor: Jennifer Leavitt | May 18, 2017 | Contributor Information
A Dual Passion
University of Queensland (Australia) medical school student Lauren Squires has a passion for both science and art. "I did take some art classes as a child, but I also grew up in a house where there were always art and craft supplies around," she told Medscape. "I just loved making things! I've been interested in art for as long as I can remember," she said, adding that popping over to the state art gallery next to her undergrad campus was her favorite way to unwind from academic stress.
"Medical art, for me, came out of a tendency to draw my study notes at the beginning of med school. It helped my retention, and I found it a relaxing way to study. I also had no background at all in anatomy, and it was the best way for me to build a mental image of the human body. It's also a pretty handy skill if I'm trying to explain something to a patient or colleague," said Ms Squires. "We also have a lot of recorded lectures to view, and I find that my mind concentrates much better if I'm doing something with my hands."
Ms Squires painted the watercolor above. "I end up doing a lot of the base painting work while I'm studying," she told Medscape, "I probably spend a good 10 hours a week doing art."
"With the generally high levels of stress that med students run under," Ms Squires reflected, "I find that 'active' relaxation is much easier to do than just sitting still and trying to chill out."
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Health and Humanities, Intertwined for Millennia
Image artwork/copyright of Lauren Squires
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Anatomy as Artwork: 16 Medical Paintings and Sketches
Editor: Jennifer Leavitt | May 18, 2017 | Contributor Information
Health and Humanities, Intertwined for Millennia
Audrey Shafer, MD, told Medscape in an earlier article of the joys she had growing up in a family that was immersed in the arts. Finances were always tight, but she has an abiding respect for that sacrifice and its importance.
She and her sister both became physicians.
"The arts and health have been intertwined for millennia," she said. "Recall Apollo as the god of both healing and music, or the creation of fertility statues such as the [Venus] of Willendorf. Physician-writers trace back to François Rabelais and earlier. Medical humanities as an academic discipline originated about half a century ago, not un-coincidentally with the steep slope of scientific and technologic progress in medicine that can alter who or what is human."
The above watercolor, Angiogram, is by medical student Lauren Squires.
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Tactile Learning
Images by Jennifer Leavitt, Medscape
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Anatomy as Artwork: 16 Medical Paintings and Sketches
Editor: Jennifer Leavitt | May 18, 2017 | Contributor Information
Tactile Learning
Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) School of the Arts offers a course in sculpting for university surgical residents. Instead of being billed as a respite from medical school stress or enhancing empathy, this course hones pragmatic skills that should serve these someday-surgeons well as they reconstruct live human beings.
"A sculpture workshop is an opportunity for plastic surgery residents to think creatively and apply their anatomy knowledge in a different way," notes a VCU article about the course.
Above, sculptures by Connecticut 8th grader Lily Blyn (not affiliated with VCU): a fist, a foot, a pelvic skeleton, and vertebrae.
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In Art and Medicine, Change Is a Given
Image artwork/copyright of Emily Remensperger
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Anatomy as Artwork: 16 Medical Paintings and Sketches
Editor: Jennifer Leavitt | May 18, 2017 | Contributor Information
In Art and Medicine, Change Is a Given
People often marvel at the painstaking detail of temporary art—sand and ice sculptures or a chalkboard drawing that will soon be erased, like the one above. Health and life are rarely static, though; hunger, satiety, wakefulness, sleep, and most other states are fleeting. The work itself may be erased, but the learning and memorization that come from this type of attention to detail can last a lifetime.
"We look for medicine to be an orderly field of knowledge and procedure. But it is not. It is an imperfect science, an enterprise of constantly changing knowledge…"
-Atul Gawande, Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science
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Humanities and Medical School
Image artwork/copyright of Lauren Squires
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Anatomy as Artwork: 16 Medical Paintings and Sketches
Editor: Jennifer Leavitt | May 18, 2017 | Contributor Information
Humanities and Medical School
While many studies have confirmed that the arts may enhance learning of all kinds, including medical training, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City was among the first to explore whether a humanities education could stand in for a pre-med background.
As part of its former HuMed program, the school admitted "humanities and social science majors who had not taken the medical college admissions test (MCAT), and a 2010 study of outcomes, found that these students did just as well in medical school as their peers who had a scientific background." (HuMed has since been replaced by a broader program, FlexMed.)
Above, a watercolor painting of human skin by medical student Lauren Squires.
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The Human Experience
Image artwork/copyright of Bayley Storrier
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Anatomy as Artwork: 16 Medical Paintings and Sketches
Editor: Jennifer Leavitt | May 18, 2017 | Contributor Information
The Human Experience
"The arts, humanities, and social sciences teach us both to look outside of ourselves and to look within," Audry Shafer, MD, told Medscape. "To explore, examine, and record what it means to be human. What do health, illness, suffering, and healing mean? What is caring? What is the experience of exhaustion, loss, and grief?"
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Artistic Subjectivity Amidst Clinical Objectivity
Image artwork/copyright of Lauren Squires
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Anatomy as Artwork: 16 Medical Paintings and Sketches
Editor: Jennifer Leavitt | May 18, 2017 | Contributor Information
Artistic Subjectivity Amidst Clinical Objectivity
"[H]ealth professionals benefit from the arts in all sorts of ways," Nicholas Genes, MD, PhD, once remarked. "Literature and the visual arts give wide-ranging perspectives on issues that go beyond the science of disease. Patients' views of medicine are informed by cultural products... doctors who engage with cultural representations are better able to appreciate patient perspectives. Patients benefit too, of course, in lots of different ways, from inspiring arts projects in hospitals to music therapy to patient empowerment programs. We all respond to the arts as individuals, and I think this subjectivity provides an important counterpoint to the objectivity of clinical medicine."
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Art for the Patient
Image artwork/copyright of Dr Rick Tan
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Anatomy as Artwork: 16 Medical Paintings and Sketches
Editor: Jennifer Leavitt | May 18, 2017 | Contributor Information
Art for the Patient
Medical students and physicians are not the only ones who benefit from art. According to a Medscape article by Pauline Anderson, a 2015 study found that participating in arts and crafts in mid-life and late life was associated with greater cognitive health in the elderly. The earlier that people engaged in these activities on a regular basis, the better their outcomes.
Another Medscape article referred to a study that found improved quality of life in cancer patients who engaged in arts and crafts. And in the Journal of Hospice & Palliative Nursing, nurses reported stress relief from activities such as painting, which potentially helped them avoid burnout from an exacting job.
The chalkboard illustrations above were prepared for a human physiology class at Davis Waldorf School.
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Art Therapy
Image artwork/copyright of Jordan Wittmer
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Anatomy as Artwork: 16 Medical Paintings and Sketches
Editor: Jennifer Leavitt | May 18, 2017 | Contributor Information
Art Therapy
Over the years, art therapy has emerged from its status as something simply good for the soul to a therapy that is taken more seriously at the clinical level.
Psychology Today reports that several studies have contributed to the growing proof that art therapy does produce statistically significant clinical outcomes, including reductions in stress, fatigue, and depression, as well as in pain and asthma management.
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A Meeting of the Minds
Image artwork/copyright of Lauren Squires
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Anatomy as Artwork: 16 Medical Paintings and Sketches
Editor: Jennifer Leavitt | May 18, 2017 | Contributor Information
A Meeting of the Minds
The arts are being integrated into both medical training and healthcare in new and exciting ways. Imagination and creativity are inching toward a new level of respect as people come to embrace their roles in education, healthcare delivery, and human health.
As Ivy League and other schools implement art programs within scientific curriculums, the population at large may become more receptive to the arts and more open to the many ways in which medicine and humanities may intersect.
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Art Imitating Art
Image artwork/copyright of Paige Storrier
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Anatomy as Artwork: 16 Medical Paintings and Sketches
Editor: Jennifer Leavitt | May 18, 2017 | Contributor Information
Art Imitating Art
For some people, art is a learning or teaching tool; for others, it is a means to healing. Others experience art as reflective, a way to connect with other human beings on a deeper level.
Perhaps, though, the processes of learning, reflecting, creating, and healing are all interconnected and cannot be so easily differentiated.
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Medicine as Art
Image artwork/copyright of Housatonic Valley Waldorf School, Class of 2018
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Anatomy as Artwork: 16 Medical Paintings and Sketches
Editor: Jennifer Leavitt | May 18, 2017 | Contributor Information
Medicine as Art
As Therese Southgate, MD, reflected, "Observation demands attention, and this is the key to both art and medicine."
"Medicine is itself an art," she said. "It is an art of doing, and if that is so, it must employ the finest tools available—not just the finest in science and technology, but the finest in the knowledge, skills, and character of the physician. Truly, medicine, like art, is a calling."
Public opinion of physicians has vacillated throughout history and the art of medicine is both reviled and revered.Medscape News Slideshows, April 2017
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