Using arts in the training of healthcare professionals

Today I 'attended' my very first webinar (- for the uninitiated, a seminar conducted over the Internet). Hosted by the European Forum for Primary Care the webinar featured Mehmet Akman (a Turkish academic working in the field of primary care and based at Marmara University School of Medicine) who spoke about 'Using arts in the training of primary care professionals'.

Mehmet's presentation was underpinned by four key points:
1. Art, especially literature, is helpful for handling values rather than facts, ambivalence rather than reductionism, dealing with a world where not everything can be explained by experiments;
2. Art creates a stimulating environment for professionals to express their feelings and thoughts regarding different aspects of human nature and themselves in a reflective manner;
3. Art has a potential to support developing an ability to respond to human needs during clinical work;
4. When used for professional development, arts can have instrumental functions (e.g. better recognition of visual signs, developing skills to deal with uncertainty,) and non-instrumental functions (e.g. personal development, new ways of thinking beyond the biomedical perspective.) The latter can be achieved through sessions in which the intrinsic value of art can be retained.

In the discussion that followed, it was acknowledged that Mehmet had focused on doctors working in primary care but that all of this could apply equally to other healthcare disciplines, other specialisms. I suggested that a logical consequence of using creative arts and humanities in the training of healthcare professionals was that these professionals might then go on to use these approaches in their direct clinical work with service users and carers. As one of the other participants pointed out, occupational therapy has a long and honourable tradition of using creative arts as part of practice. There is no reason why creativity can't be a positive influence in healthcare more generally and I'm grateful to Mehmet and his colleagues at the European Forum for Primary Care for reminding us of this.