UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A growing partnership between the Penn State colleges of Arts and Architecture and Medicine is expanding on the humanities education offered in the medical school, incorporating the visual arts as a way to enhance empathy, communication, observation and interpretation.
The Penn State College of Medicine was the first medical school in the country to have a dedicated humanities department, and now at least a third of medical schools across the country have embraced the humanities in medical education, according to Dr. Michael Flanagan, assistant dean for student affairs at the College of Medicine University Park regional campus.
“It helps us teach students how to be better physicians,” said Flanagan, who also has an academic appointment in the Department of Humanities. “Students come into med school with a higher index of empathy, but med school is often grueling, and they are exposed to death and dying on a regular basis. Sometimes, as a coping mechanism, empathy starts to wane.”
Since 2017, Flanagan has collaborated with College of Arts and Architecture faculty on seminars, workshops and guest lectures intended to enhance med students’ communication and observation skills, with the partnership expanding to include the Palmer Museum of Art.
An exhibition, “The Art of Teaching: Medical Education and the Integrated Curriculum,” on display at the Palmer until Sept. 1, is one result of the partnership. It includes a selection of works from the museum’s permanent collection that encourages reflection on three themes: Health, Wellness and Dis/Ability; Death, Dying and Grief; and Imposter Syndrome and Professional Identity. Those themes are addressed in the integrated art and science curriculum for medical students that was developed by Flanagan; Dr. Mark Stephens, associate dean for medical education at the University Park campus; and Brandi Breslin, director of education at the Palmer. The curriculum has been used at the University Park campus since 2019.
When Breslin joined the museum staff in 2018, she was no stranger to working with med students and faculty. She had collaborated with the college of medicine at the University of Florida in her previous position at the Harn Museum of Art.
Both Breslin and Flanagan point out there is new research that shows that engaging in art through making or observation increases serotonin levels, which in turn helps to maintain a sense of wellness and balance despite a med student’s grueling schedule.
Engaging in art can also promote discussion and team building, they note. The art and science curriculum includes a component that focuses on working together to build consensus, using items in the museum as discussion prompts.
“Being in the museum [rather than a medical setting] definitely takes the high stakes out of it,” said Breslin.
Flanagan had been bringing his students to the Palmer for informal workshops for several years before he started to collaborate with Breslin and Keri Mongelluzzo, educator for academic engagement and access. Flanagan decided to create the art and science integrated curriculum when Stephens joined in on their conversations.
Stephens, who also has an academic appointment in the Department of Humanities, uses mask-making to facilitate professional identify formation by medical students, a practice he began while teaching at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. A Penn State alum, he joined the University faculty in 2016 when he retired from the Navy. He has given talks and facilitated mask-making workshops through the Arts and Design Research Incubator, or ADRI, housed in the College of Arts and Architecture.
“When I moved back to State College, I doubled down on how to use mask-making to facilitate a sense of identity in young learners,” he said. “Everyone comes in with a sense of self — gender, national identity, athlete, where you want to college. You have to weave being a healthcare provider into that.”
Stephens said he and his students have created more than 500 masks since he joined the Penn State College of Medicine faculty, with many of them adorning the walls of his office.
“Bringing art, reflection and identity creation into my work has been an absolute joy,” said Stephens. “It’s not art therapy; it’s identity formation.”
The Palmer exhibition — the first in the new teaching gallery — also includes a monitor with a series of photos that illustrate mask-making activities and other components of the integrated curriculum, as well as images of artwork created by med students.
Adding an international component to the collaboration, in 2023, University of Bologna med students visited University Park and completed activities at the Palmer with Penn State med students. In spring 2024, Flanagan went to the University of Bologna with the goal of “developing an international collaboration that uses the arts to teach med students across the ocean.”
Flanagan acknowledged that med students often are surprised by the incorporation of humanities.
“They have to take a leap of faith about how incorporating art will make them better physicians," Flanagan said. "Once they experience the content of our curriculum, it becomes clear to them.”
According to B. Stephen Carpenter II, Michael J. and Aimee Rusinko Kakos Dean in the College of Arts and Architecture, the college’s collaboration with the medical school demonstrates the benefits of interdisciplinary instruction while strengthening multi-campus partnerships.
“In the College of Medicine, we have found genuine and dedicated partners who mobilize the arts to teach a range of skills important to virtually any profession, and who particularly support the incorporation of the humanities in medical education. I’m excited to see this mutually beneficial partnership continue to grow," Carpenter said.
Activities related to the partnership have been funded in part by the Jaffe Endowment for Research in Family and Community Medicine.