Sewing the SEAMs: Surgical Education in the Art Museum

Objective: The field of surgery is highly visual and technical. Yet, there is a paucity of data evaluating how a mandatory visual arts-based workshop may benefit surgical trainees. We report upon the feasibility of and short-term outcomes of a novel, visual art-based curriculum for surgery residents.

Design: A validated survey was administered at the end of each visual art workshop to measure resident self-reported skills in problem-solving, interpersonal skills, and wellness. All questionnaire items were measured on a 4-point Likert scale (0-3) with added responses that were analyzed qualitatively.

Setting: 3-hour singular workshops were hosted at The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Participants: General and vascular surgery residents in their first and second postgraduate year were required to participate in the new curriculum.

Results: Moderate to great improvement was reported for most questionnaire items. The greatest improvement was reported for making intentional observations (2.46), attentiveness to detail (2.42), viewing others as multidimensional people (2.57), and forming connections with colleagues (2.5). When asked how the workshop would impact their future practice, many residents described setting goals to: slow down when thinking through clinical problems, to consider alternative diagnoses, work on perspective taking, and paraphrase back to patients to enhance their relationships and accuracy of communication.

Conclusions: Required workshops for surgery residents early in their training at an art museum is feasible and beneficial. Future studies to measure the long-term impact such session and the ideal content and timing (e.g., PGY 1-5) are required to better understand the potential of this methodology.