Relating with art in the health sector, through the Visual Thinking Strategies method, enables a process of observation, analysis, confrontation and discussion to be activated in order to acquire a method to be applied also in clinical activity, improving skills in the objective examination of the patient and the propensity to work in a team, implementing problem solving and critical thinking skills, cultivating empathy towards the patient and respect for others.
The introduction to the study of the arts in healthcare dates back to the 1960s, when the discipline of Medical Humanities was developed. These arose from the need to enrich studies in the medical sciences with the humanities, in the conviction that medicine is more than a collection of knowledge and technical skills: humanistic subjects such as art, literature, philosophy, ethics, history are thus included, as fundamental, in the curriculum of a good doctor.
The VTS method was applied for the first time in a degree course in Medicine and Surgery at Harvard University in the academic year 2003-2004. One part of the course is conducted at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and another part with clinical lectures, both in the classroom and in the ward, in which medical lecturers focus on visual diagnosis and correlate physical examination with artistic concepts.
In Italy, the VTS method has been used in medical and healthcare settings since 2014 by the VTS Italy research group.
In the section APPROFONDIMENTI you will find links to books and articles in which some of our experiences in the field of Medical Humanities are reported.