For medical and healthcare students at all levels
Art is Patient is a series of 3 seminars to explore visual art in a museum context, as an analogue to meeting patients in our offices.
The course introduces learners to a series of fresh steps to see art objects. Through facilitated looking, talking and mark-making, it offers an enlightening way of meeting and understanding the people we work with. The approach recognizes that we don’t need background knowledge – any specialized education — in order to learn to get to know objects and Others in a humane and meaningful way.
The seminars turn a group of learners and a museum into a dynamic lab for visual literacy. In each of three linked sessions, the educator leads the group in engaging with one or two pieces of artwork with openness, curiosity, creative collaboration, and humility.
Learning goals:
Sharpened technical abilities such as close observation, diagnostic acumen, pattern recognition and the perception of non-verbal cues
Enhanced cognitive skills, such as description and interpretation (and understanding the distinction between them), critical thinking, and metacognition
Enriched interpersonal skills with both patients and colleagues, such as collaboration, social awareness and cultural sensitivity
Furthered professional growth: professional identity formation and the nurturing of humanistic qualities such as empathy, tolerance of ambiguity, creativity and enhanced self-reflection.
Facilitated by Eva-Marie Stern, RP, MA
Art Psychotherapist, Adjunct Faculty Dept of Psychiatry, Specialist in Arts-based Education
2021 Fall semester: Wednesdays November 3, 10, 17
4:00pm to 5:30pm at the Royal Ontario Museum (tickets provided; double-vaccination required)
Limited enrolment! This is an in-person small group experience. Attendance at all 3 seminars required to participate
To register: contact evamarie.stern@utoronto.ca