How Can Art Help Doctors Eliminate Bias?

Diagnostic Accuracy

Learning about and appreciating visual arts can help doctors make more accurate diagnoses, which is the very foundation of treating patients. Painting, drawing, or making art in any media sharpens observation and other spatial skills, which are crucial to evaluating physical presentation in patients. Art observation can also be engaging and interactive, which are important skills for physicians to develop.

Also, when people study art, they are forced to examine and confront their own biases. Art students and critics often disagree — sometimes very widely — about what can be seen in a piece of art and what it means. Acknowledging that people see things in different ways, almost certainly informed by their own lived experiences, is a valuable skill and one that is crucial when treating patients.

Structural Changes

There is also agreement in the medical education world that wholesale structural changes are needed to counter racism and other stereotypes. Pre-judging patients hinders objective observation and diagnoses, and healthcare providers need to be able to approach patients with a clean slate.

Again, learning to observe and interpret visual art works strengthens clinical examination and diagnostic skills. Studying works of art from different cultures also helps to reduce bias and stereotypes. Clinicians with more open minds are better able to evaluate patients.

Medical misdiagnoses are the third leading cause of death in the United States, and many misdiagnoses happen because the current medical education model teaches doctors to ignore their own uncertainty. One of the lessons to be learned from arts observation is to examine internal biases. Practicing this kind of thought process is beneficial for both doctors and patients.

Medical schools, including Yale and Harvard, and organizations such as Arts Practica agree about the importance of art and art education in medical school curricula. More and more medical schools are requiring young physicians to take courses in arts observation, and institutes such as Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston University School of Medicine, and the American College of Physicians are actively studying the value of arts education in clinical programs.