The Use of Arts in Health Professions Education: Applicability as a New Teaching Method / 医学教育

ABSTRACT

The use of arts in Japanese health professions education has received increasing attention. This paper provides an overview of arts-integrated learning and related concepts, including medical humanities. It also discusses the benefits of using arts as a new teaching method. The benefits include facilitating the understanding of the human condition-such as involvement in medicine and disease-with emotion, including empathy, through case studies and cultivating perspective-taking and critical perspectives. Further, the use of arts helps to encourage learning in diverse contexts for transfer (application) to clinical practice, fostering values regarding medicine, nurturing a research mindset, facilitating an integrative understanding using creative methods, and enabling students to experience the usefulness of arts in medicine.