The impact of visual thinking in medical education

Abstract

Background Considering medical humanities, medicine and art are two areas that resemble each other at several features. Clinical diagnosis involves the observation, description and interpretation of information of which visual ones take an important one. The skills described are important skills in the field of visual arts, as well. Underlying a good clinical practice; clinical examination and observation skills constitute an important place. Although in several studies, these skills are shown to be improved by analyzing visual art pieces, courses intended to improve visual thinking skills are not that much common in medical faculty curriculums. Materials and methods In this article, we share our opinion about the use of visual thinking in medical education by providing preliminary reflection results of learners from the second year of medical education about the visual thinking course that we have recently started to apply in Faculty of Medicine in collaboration with Faculty of Fine Arts in Izmir University of Economics in order to improve the observational skills of learners. Results Reflection results of the learners support the view that training art-viewing skill is helpful to improve observational and descriptive skills. Conclusions Increasing interdisciplinary programs on visual thinking in medical curriculums have the potential to overcome several professional development challenges in clinics.