
The Perelman School of Medicine and the Drexel College of Medicine launched a new pilot elective course in medical humanities, which meets at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, this spring.
Credit: Abhiram JuvvadiThe Perelman School of Medicine and the Drexel University College of Medicine launched a new pilot elective in medical humanities this spring.
The course — which enrolls 30 students from both schools — is the first cross-medical school collaborative pilot elective between the Perelman School of Medicine and Drexel’s College of Medicine and the first collaboration across medical schools in the medical humanities field. The goal of the course — “The Art of the Physical Exam” — is to increase medical students’ clinical observation skills used during physical examinations.
The interactive course applies visual art, photography, and visual thinking strategies to myriad fields, including ophthalmology, dermatology, neurology, pathology, and radiology.
Sally Nijim, a biomedical leadership fellow at the Perelman School of Medicine, conceptualized the idea for the elective, designed the curriculum, and organized the group of students and faculty involved in the initiative.
“The goal is that this will become a continuous medical humanities collaboration between the medical schools for the future and sets up an opportunity for the medical humanities to be studied across medical schools,” Nijim said.
According to Nijim, a research study is embedded in the pilot elective to demonstrate how medical students can benefit from courses in the medical humanities.
Several faculty members across Penn Medicine and CHOP are involved in designing the curriculum and teaching the course. For instance, a session on ophthalmology is led by CHOP Chief of Ophthalmology Gil Binenbaum.
“Being able to analyze artwork and then shifting gears to analyzing clinical images in the same style has allowed me, and likely my colleagues as well, to pick up on minute details like colors, patterns, and figures … we then use that to weave a story as opposed to attempting to jump right to a diagnosis and then finding features that support that,” Dimitrios Bakatsias, a first-year medical student at Drexel who is enrolled in the course, said.
He added that the program serves as a way to "collaborate and expand [the students'] horizons."
Bakatsias also said that the differing perspectives of the participating students add an interesting element to the program, as the curriculum structures differ greatly between the two medical programs.
“We are at different points in our training, in regards to topics we've covered, so getting to combine our knowledge, when relevant, speaks to the collaborative and dynamic aspect of the field that we are entering," Bakatsias said.
Perelman School of Medicine professor Horace DeLisser wrote in a statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian that he strongly supports "integration of the art and humanities into medical education" because they "develop clinical observation skills, promote relational competence, foster community and connection among the students, and support student well-being."
"At the Perelman School of Medicine, we have a burgeoning medical humanities program, the growth and scope of which would not have been possible without the energy, effort and enthusiasm of our students," DeLisser wrote. "Sally's initiative in developing and then executing this visual thinking strategies course is the most recent example of how our students have taken the lead in developing programing and courses around the arts and humanities."
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