Art and the Human Condition: Incorporating Visual Analysis of Artworks into a Undergraduate Pre-Medicine Curriculum

This thesis project presents a sample class session for the course, "The Human Condition: An Arts Perpective" (ARTH 361), which will be a part of the optional Medical Humanities minor for the pre-medicine students at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). Dr. Margaret Lindauer, Associate Professor of Art History at VCU has directed the development of this course. She oversaw the creation of the preliminary syllabus, which includes readings and assignments relevant to the course. The Tour presented in this thesis project provides a model for planning other class sessions, some of which will be developed by Museum Studies graduate students, some of whom might not have previous experience facilitating gallery tours. I assert that tours such as the one proposed in this project provide pre-medicine students with the opportunity to practice observational skills outside of the clinical setting. In looking at art, pre-medicine students approach the act of observation from a different angle and discussion about art objects often have valuable insight about the medical profession they are entering into. This thesis report accordingly offers brief summaries of research studies that were consulted while the aforementioned tour was developed. It also includes the author's experiences working with a group of pre-nursing undergraduate student at VCU, and it includes a summary of the devloped tour as well as feedback provided by a VMFA Education Department staff member.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Art History

Year dc:date.available

2012

Author dc:creator

• Fuqua, Elizabeth

Contributors dc:contributor

• Margaret Lindauer

• art
• medicine
• observation
• Arts and Humanities

Statement dc:rights

• © The Author

Identifier

https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/324

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarscompass.vcu.edu:etd-1323