About this episode
Health care trainees rotate through a variety of different settings. ICUs, hospital wards, and outpatient clinics. If they're lucky, they might even spend time in a nursing home. But on today's podcast, we're adding one more setting to that list: your local art museum. In this thought-provoking episode, we explore how art museum teaching is being integrated into the education of medical professionals—and why it's making a profound difference. Our guests, Amy Klein, Laura Morrison, and Gordon Wood, share their journey of integrating art into medical training, along with practical strategies you can use if you're inspired to do the same. You'll also hear how engaging with museum-based medical education can help health care professionals deepen empathy and emotional awareness, practice the skill of multiple perspective-taking, and grow more comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty. Resources mentioned in the podcast include: A story about one medical student's experience with a day in the museum using multiple museum-based education exercices A Journal Article published in the Journal of Palliative Medicine titled "Museum-Based Education: A Novel Educational Approach for Hospice and Palliative Medicine Training Programs" A journal article on "Twelve Tips for Starting a Collaboration with an Art Museum." A handout from the 2025 AAHPM/HPNA preconference gives examples of museum-based education exercises and resources for further training. Alex's summary of some prompts we discussed for the "Personal Responses Tour", which is a reflective exercise where participants choose artwork based on a personal prompt, then share with a small group. The prompts include: Find a work of art that reminds you of a patient
