Arts and Humanities for the Education of Medicine (AHEM) Workshop, 21st October
‘The Lifejacket’, Nancy Barter 2024: A lifejacket signed by refugees in Calais in their native language. Part of ‘Becoming Doctors: A Medical Humanities Exhibition’ led by AHEM member Luca Di Gregorio (Southampton)
Arts and Humanities for the Education of Medicine (AHEM) Workshop, 21st October
The Arts and Humanities for the Education of Medicine (AHEM) Network returned to Harris Manchester College for our third in-person workshop in Oxford. Where our inaugural meeting in January 2025 began to develop the network and begin conversations, and our second meeting in October 2025 focused on medical education and research, our third in-person workshop focused on the arts in UK medical education. The event was kindly sponsored by the Uehiro Oxford Institute.
An important part of all of our meetings has been hearing about best-practice in the field. To learn from as many workshop participants as possible we organised a flashtalks session. The four presenters covered a wealth of subjects in the allotted 5 minutes.
First Luca Di Gregorio (Southampton) presented ‘Becoming Doctors. A Medical Humanities Exhibition’ that discussed the exhibition he organised with the local gallery to showcase medical students’ work. This stemmed from a compulsory module on Medical Humanities for medical students at the University of Southampton. It explores medicine, healthcare, and human experience through the lens of the arts, humanities, and social sciences. We were all in awe of Luca’s energy and commitment to putting on such an incredible exhibition and gave us much food for thought for our own institutions. Feedback on the exhibition showed that the public found it profoundly moving, suggesting the value of arts-based approaches in communicating the lived experience of students and doctors. Subsequently, Luca discussed the tripartite model of medical humanities Southampton is developing, where medical education, research and scholarship and public engagement are closely integrated.
Second, Adonna Francis (Imperial) presented ‘Medical Students Making Fictional Comics on Death & Grief: 3 Surprising Findings!’. This was a considered analysis of the products of student-made comic books addressing issues surrounding death and grief, that was part of the intercalated programme at Imperial. Adonna’s first observation was that because students find this task strange and daunting, they often drew on their own experiences when writing despite being asked to create fiction. Similarly, though comics are often humorous, students were apprehensive about engaging with humour as a narrative tool, which Adonna linked to the fact they were being assessed. Finally, she observed that students rarely tackle subjects such as the afterlife in these narratives, focusing on medical encounters and little beyond, perhaps self-censoring, discomfort with discussing uncertainty, or simply not considering that possibility. Taken together these observations provide practical suggestions for how such tasks can be expanded and built upon in medical education.
Our third speaker was Sahana Narayan (Oxford) on ‘11 Seconds: Can creative writing teach clinicians to listen differently?’ Based on her PhD research, the talk began with the stunning statistic that 11 seconds is the median time it takes for a clinician to interrupt a patient. Sahana then explored the different ways we can learn from patient and healthcare provider stories and experiences to deliver compassionate care in the field of maternal health. Central throughout was the balance of listening attentively to patients within the bounds of modern healthcare and its significant demands. Concepts such as narrative humility – accepting that we can only know a part of a patient’s journey/story – are key to ensuring that perceptions of a patient do not narrow through the treatment process. Sahana also described the process of translation and re-translation that must be acknowledged as part of the encounter, as she put it “every clinical note is an edited story”. The presentation ended with a short discussion about the Ockenden Review, emphasising the subject’s topicality but also demonstrated that approaches such as creative writing can be part of the solution by emphasising constructive discussions with patients, particularly about risk and how it is acted on in healthcare.
Our last flashtalk was from Andrew West (Oxford) who presented, ‘Free Musical Improvisation and Responsible Uncertainty’. This highlighted the role of improvision in clinical practice, something that Andrew became increasingly interested in towards the end of his clinical career when he joined a free musical improvision group. Improvisation is a crucial way to deal with uncertainty in medical practice, just as it is a way to respond to a musical prompt. This often runs contrary to the emphasis on pattern recognition that is dominant in medicine. Andrew argued therefore, that the reputation of improvision needed to be rehabilitated in medical practice, as it is a response to the sheer variation of medical practice rooted in expertise, listening and alacrity: important virtues for medical practice. While many doctors recognise they are often improvising, a more overt engagement with the concept could be productive. Andrew is working towards developed a Special Study Module on this work at Oxford Medical School.
Following the flashtalks, our scheduled parallel session was transformed into a joint, unparalleled session led by Suzy Willson and Carly Annable-Coop (Clod Ensemble) and Gina Hadley (Oxford). The session’s key themes were creativity, collaboration and teaching co-design, with all participants emphasising the significant value that arts and humanities-informed teaching can bring to medical education whilst being upfront about the often substantial amount of work it can take to set up and maintain.
Suzy began the session by outlining the work that the Clod Ensemble, an independent performance company, has conducted across medical schools and NHS Trusts on subjects such as bullying in surgery, improving maternity healthcare, and dealing with aggressive patients. They also touched upon the research they conducted during the pandemic non-verbal and spatial aspects of healthcare. This overview clarified the key interests of the Ensemble and issues they commonly encounter. Most significant is that as an independent arts organisation they have a very different set-up to the institutions they work with, which requires those organisations to recognise the need for clarity over payment, recognition of the expertise being provided, and a non-appropriative attitude to the sessions provided. Building on this point, Suzy emphasised that the most effective collaborations are ones where there is dialogue and development with institutions over time, so that sessions aren’t simply dropped into a curriculum without appropriate context and buy-in from other staff.
We then moved to consider how non-verbal communication can be taught by getting up and moving. Introducing us to an exercise the Ensemble uses as part of their work with third-year medical students about to go onto the ward for the first time, we were paired up and asked to take turns leading a partner – whose eyes were closed – around the room by the hand. This simple task was highly effective at opening up a rich conversation on how non-verbal cues can communicate. In my case, my careful halting and slow pace must have communicated some anxiety about not bumping my partner into others. In contrast, my partner was much bolder and more confident when she led me around, though that did lead to my bumping into others!
Following this exercise Carly then described a more complex session on managing aggression and conflict in clinical scenarios. This is co-taught with university staff, and begins with a scenario acted out by simulated patient. The patient becomes more aggressive in response to news they receive against a backdrop of the stresses and strains of working on target-driven wards. Once delivered, students are invited to discuss the scenario and make changes, with the actors involved even acting out new scenarios in response to suggestions. This encourages student discussion and involvement that is then built upon by introducing key concepts – such as a 5-point model to managing conflict – alongside clinical teaching staff providing their experiences of such scenarios from their own practice. This highly-memorable session has been co-designed over iterations with the university staff involved, with more detail on the scenario available here.
Gina then introduced a co-designed session on difficult conversations around death and dying that she has developed with the Ashmolean Museum (published here). Students begin the day with a seminar on neuro-palliative care in which clinicians describe their experiences with death in healthcare Medical students then follow a trail around the museum to look at objects across 5 themes: Death and the Doctor, Death and the Body, Death and Dying, Death and the Child, and Death and Life. The themes encourage students to think about a range of ways that they may encounter death in practice, supported by prompt questions for the trail. The session is an important part of students’ professional development, meeting GMC Outcomes for Graduates and being relevant to the MLA. But the greater emphasis is on those essential skills which may elide formal assessment: the importance of care and compassion in breaking bad news, in doctors reflecting on their own relationship with death and grief, and thinking about how to deal with diverse patients from very different backgrounds to their own.
After lunch, we hosted a short discussion with Alberto Giubilini (Oxford) to mark the publication of a special issue of the Monash Bioethics Review that he edited, ‘Medical Humanities in the 21st Century: their meaning, value, and place in academic and societal discussion’. This was, in part, based on the outputs of our Inaugural meeting in January 2025 which called for a community of practice for Medical Humanities academics engaged in medical education in the UK. It began with career-long reflections on the medical humanities in medical education by Professor Alan Bleakley covering not only medical students but interprofessional postgraduate education. The workshops that followed covered the following subjects:
- The role of humanities scholars in medical schools today: This has subsequently led to a paper (under review) based on a survey of institutions across the UK to map the current roles, backgrounds and sustainability of those currently teaching medical humanities.
- Cross-disciplinary collaboration and patients as partners: This workshop discussed the vital role of the patient voice and co-design of content that was both relevant and sensitive to the needs of the patient.
- Teaching the humanities to medical students in the core medical curriculum: This workshop explored the reality that ‘Assessment drives learning’1 With the introduction of the Medical Licensing exam (MLA) this has become even more salient. Ensuring content maps to the General Medical Council’s (GMC) ‘Outcomes for Graduates’2 is key.
- Teaching the humanities to medical students in intercalated degrees: These form a significant part of the medical humanities offering at several UK medical schools. The challenges here involve these options as being viewed as ‘less serious’ than more traditional subjects such as pharmacology and physiology.
- Assessing the humanities in medical curricula: challenges and opportunities: The final session addressed current challenges head-on. Clearer signposting to key medical curricula and ways of embedding content into assessment provided clear outcomes to work towards as a cohesive community.
It was then time for the keynote session from Professor Louise Younie, ‘Pockets of the Future: What the Arts Make Possible in Medical Education’. The lecture focused on the role of creative enquiry in medical teaching, drawing on over 20 years of experience in the field, and began by situating the practice within current medical education, emphasising that there is increased amenability to such teaching within medicine, in part due to an increasing acknowledgement that such teaching aids complex systems management as well as the application of medical science to specific patients.
Louise argued that creative enquiry is not about technical proficiency, and there is often some work to do with students to get them to focus on the process rather than the product of their work, and not worry about excelling compared to their peers. The benefits of engaging with creative practices – writing, painting, sculpting, acting, and so on – stem from the kind of ethnographic thinking it encourages in students, as they are explicitly focused on trying to put themselves into the place of patients. To do this, the twin concepts of narrative humility – that we can’t know everything about patients’ stories – and practicing reflexivity are key. These help to highlight that such practice is a tool not a conclusion, but one worth looking back on and considering.
Louise then discussed different ways to support students learning from creative practice. First, was assessment. Though a significant challenge, Louise discussed a mark scheme and training for markers that she had developed covering four domains: impact, perception, aesthetic, and reflection (similar to Laurel Richardson’s Evaluating Ethnography). This helped make the formative (not summative) assessment clearer to all involved, and made the work more like other aspects of the course for students. Another strategy was learning from examples: websites and exhibitions of student work help to inspire them and gives them a place to build their own responses from. This can also be supported by demonstrating ‘vulnerable leadership’ by giving space to the educator’s doubts and uncertainty, discussing failures and frustrations, and ultimately being honest with students about practice/creativity. This stems from the observation that being creative means ‘putting something of yourself into it’ alongside the idea that only focusing on the biomedical can shrink medical students’ worlds. The aim should be to develop a human dimension of healthcare that is intertwined with the clinical, like DNA. Doing so encourages learning from patients, acknowledging and reflecting on difficulties, and being comfortable with uncertainty and a lack of resolution. Louise argued that on this basis, flourishing (in the Aristotelian sense) is possible in medical careers, ahead of the simple, brittle concept of resilience. Louise finally summarised the key advantages of building creative practice into medical curricula as encouraging engagement with the patient voice, the student voice, and the messiness of frontline practice.
To end the day we had a brief discussion on the next steps for the network. If you’re interested in hearing more about them, please join our mailing list here.
Richard Bellis, Sally Frampton and Gina Hadley.
- Wormald BW, Schoeman S, Somasunderam A, Penn M. Assessment drives learning: an unavoidable truth?. Anatomical sciences education. 2009 Oct;2(5):199-204.
- Outcomes for graduates https://www.gmc-uk.org/cdn/documents/outcomes-for-graduates-2020_pdf-846...
