Next Generation is a Brigham Clinical & Research News (CRN) column penned by students, residents, fellows and postdocs. If you are a Brigham trainee interested in contributing a column, email bwhclinicalandresearchnews@partners.org. This month’s column is written by Hannah Kim, MS, an intern in the Visual Arts in Healthcare Program at the Brigham.

Hannah Kim

For most of my life, I understood the sciences and arts to be like water and oil; two separate disciplines that do not mix. My fascination with science started at an early age during Saturday morning visits to my mother’s fertility clinic. I would flip through charts and diagrams of the female anatomy, despite not fully grasping the concept of in vitro fertilization. As I continued to grow, my love for the arts also blossomed. I remember being eight years old in a pine-scented music shop, brimming with polished instruments and piles of coiled strings. I was instantly drawn by the rich timbre of the mahogany masterpiece that was the cello. This was the start of a melodic journey of self-expression and musical discovery. It was the intersection of the two that led me to develop a deeper passion for the common principle that governs both healthcare and the humanities: the drive to understand, heal, and connect with one another.

The Canvas of Care

In the spring of 2023, I was wrapping up my senior year at Dartmouth College as well as my time as an Eichler’57 Fellow for Medicine and Humanities. The fellowship encouraged me to dig deeper into the intersection by analyzing the ways in which poetry cultivates critical thinking skills in a pre-clinical setting, discussing the significance of the acoustic environment for patients in hospitals, and using various art mediums to practice observation skills to uncover often overlooked details. Inspired by what I had learned during my fellowship, I pursued an internship with the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center Aging Resource Center and created a music-based listening course called, “Music to my Ear, But What Do You Really Hear?” for geriatric patients. I quickly began to see the interconnectedness of science and music, and I knew I wanted to understand more about how utilizing both disciplines could make me a better physician.

By the end of my time at Dartmouth College, I got exciting news that I would be working as a clinical research coordinator in the Women’s Hormones and Aging Research Program in the Psychiatry Department at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. I had chosen a job in Boston because I knew I could engage in research at a high caliber with renowned researchers and physicians in an understudied field, as well as find opportunities to understand how physicians used the humanities in healthcare in various capacities. With a goal in mind to continue exploring the intersection (and a quick Google search), I stumbled upon the Visual Arts in Healthcare Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital the summer before I moved to Boston. I reached out to Brooke DiGiovanni Evans, EdM, co-founder and director of the Visual Arts in Healthcare Program, to learn more about the program and its current projects and initiatives.

I was instantly intrigued by Brooke’s description of how the team at the program trained healthcare workers to become humanistic providers using visual arts methods known as Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS). The program’s mission focuses on using visual arts to cultivate empathy, resourcefulness, and collaboration amongst healthcare teams to improve patient care. Though the program is relatively new, the strong tie between the arts and healthcare at Brigham and Women’s Hospital runs deep. The Visual Arts in Healthcare Program had come from a Harvard Medical School course that had been running for over 20 years called, “Training the Eye: Improving the Art of Physical Diagnosis.” Yet, the arts at Brigham can be traced all the way back to Harvey Cushing, MD, a surgeon at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in 1912 who utilized medical illustrations in his notes of his dissections. The program’s mission and historic roots were exactly what I was hoping I’d find, and I asked Brooke if I could intern at the program. To my surprise, she said yes!

Healing Through Art

The work I do with the program helps me exercise creativity and asks me to draw on a wide variety of skills. The tasks I complete range from managing REDCap databases for research protocols, to creating and designing newsletters and conducting literature reviews for upcoming programs. However, my first real experience with VTS was when I had the chance to join Ingrid Ganske, MD, pediatric surgeon at Boston Children’s Hospital, and her team of pediatric plastic surgeons at the Museum of Fine Arts for a Training the Eye program. Led by Stephanie Cohen, MD, a research fellow at the program, we discussed art with three Visual Thinking Strategy questions:

• What do you see?
• What do you see that makes you say that?
• What more can you find?

These three questions cover what a physician should do when making a diagnosis: analyze the objective data available to you, form a rationale from the evidence, and seek more information that can help make a more accurate diagnosis. By the end, the surgeons had concluded that they had found the program not only relaxing, but helpful in reminding them to be open-minded and communicative to work together successfully. In addition, we recently conducted a pilot for a research protocol we will be starting in the fall of 2024 with interns from the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The protocol explores the way VTS can enhance clinical reasoning skills. During the pilot, I had the opportunity to see how the interns engaged with visual art, which ranged from sculptures to portraitures, and how those communication, teambuilding, and reasoning skills could be applied in a clinical setting.

Painting a Brighter Tomorrow

The best part of working at the program is being reminded of how valuable education is in a field like healthcare, which demands constant adaptation to best serve the reason why we are all drawn to it in the first place: being able to care and connect with one another. Humanistic approaches strengthen teaching and training in medicinal education, allowing physicians to develop the mix of intellect and emotions that are required to treat patients. Seeing how VTS goes from theory to action has helped me understand the power of refining clinical judgement by approaching cases with fresh eyes and leaving biases behind for a better diagnosis. Most importantly, the program has shown me that the arts and science are not independent; their complementary relationship reveals the interdependent nature of our world and bears testament to our collective pursuit of bettering the world through knowledge and healing.

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