Visualising the art of medicine: a showcase of creative endeavour from Bristol Medical School, UK.

The practice of medicine is both art and science. At Bristol Medical School, we seek to create learning opportunities to support our students to develop in both of these complementary domains. Alongside learning the biomedical and social science principles of medicine, our students meet real patients from the start. Their consultation skills training places patients at the centre of each encounter.(1) In a novel aspect of our course, we also draw students toward the human dimension through engagement with the creative arts.

Creativity is one of the core values of our consultational approach. Though medicine is not typically considered a creative discipline, we argue that fresh thinking is key to helping patients unlock complex health problems.(2) The creative arts bring the additional demand of close and considered observation, a skill directly transferable to clinical life.(3) The arts also lend themselves well to tackling uncertainty and ambiguity, issues we often encounter as clinicians, but about which it is difficult to teach.(4)
For the last 15 years, we have provided contexts for students to create art works as a formal element of their degree course. Informally referred to as “compulsory creativity”,(5) students are tasked to create artistic work in any medium, based on an aspect of their medical experience. In some contexts we seek individual creations, in others they are tasked to work as a group. Works often focus on encounters with real patients and their professional carers. Other common themes include their emerging professional identities and the wonders of the human body.

Each year a cluster of creative works are added to a curated online art collection, ‘Out of our Heads’ (OOOHs) at www.outofourheads.net.(6) Some students are accomplished artists, creating works of a professional standard. We also curate works where the execution is naïve, but where the underlying story is poignant and well observed. Media to date include painting, drawing, poetry, short stories, film, mime, embroidery, sculpture, collage, cartoon and rap. Works are submitted with explanatory notes by the artist, as well as encouragement for student peers to reflect and add moderated comment.

In our experience, the creative process can be of direct benefit to the wellbeing of the student artist, including those who claim to have little or no aptitude. Through embracing the arts, the student gains agency. There is the opportunity to put their unique spin on things and have that creative effort acknowledged by the wider community. The creative process further seems to unlock self-confidence and a sense of excitement in learning. In current times where we see increasing numbers of students facing mental health challenges, creative engagement can be revitalizing and sustaining. (7)

For this paper we have selected works from www.outofourheads.net which surface qualities of acute attention and imaginative capacity. Translating medical enquiry through hands-on engagement allows student-artists to generate multiple material transformations whilst approaching their final creative integration. Many artists refer to the pivotal role of embracing this visceral and intellectual ‘dance’ in their reflective notes. These notes highlight their choices of materials and representation, which honour the kernel of the artists’ original curiosity and intent. We also reference selected OOOH! online responses from student peers, showing how the appreciation of creative enquiry leads to deepening dialogue around the medical enterprise.