Understanding the role of the art museum in teaching clinical-level medical students

Figures & data

Figure 1. Example of a gift created by a participant for a relationship depicted in a painting viewed during Family session 2

Table 1. Descriptions and exemplary quotes for the 7 themes that emerged from qualitative analysis

Theme Type	Theme	Description of theme	Exemplary quotes of theme from source data
Form	(1) Group format	Makeup and size of the group	‘The experience of working in my intimate group … was incredibly valuable’
	(2) Method	Teaching modality and method, variety of activities and tasks	‘The thing for me that … was really striking … is the way in which the questions were framed … it was just so open that it allowed us all to answer in our own ways and to be able to kind of have our own style in how we responded to things’
	(3) Setting	Physical museum space and temporal space (e.g., time for close looking)	‘Being in a museum, I felt like it tapped into my emotions’ ‘The architecture and the environment of the museum framed this experience’
	(4) Objects	Artworks as evocative objects, aesthetic features	‘The nice thing is that we were all looking at an object. The thing we were interpreting wasn’t located within us’
Function	(5)Appreciation of others	Diversity of perspective, cultivating empathy, team building	‘I was really pleasantly surprised by how … generative it was to hear other people’s perspectives on the objects we were looking at together that were very, obviously complementary, obviously rigorous and thoughtful, obviously beyond what I would’ve reached by myself’ ‘[It’s] very important to have those discussions and see you’re not the only person feeling this and being able to … validate each other’ ‘With a group of people you can add a lot of meaning to it and make it something really special’
	(6) Critical skills	Communication, critical thinking, dealing with unfamiliarity and uncertainty	‘ ….there’s a lot of information you can glean from nonverbal cues’ ‘You don’t have to have the answers but you can make hypotheses about what could be going on and you build evidence for those alternative hypotheses. And it’s just a process of critical thinking’
	(7) Personal inquiry	Making sense of meaning in life and professional identity, self-awareness and personal growth, empowerment, transformation, therapeutic effects	‘ … I think that taps into something deeper than just the cognitive thinking about what would be a good career. It makes you think deeper about what really speaks to my core. And that’s why I found the exercise really validating because what spoke to me in the art was also what I’m doing in my career’ ‘I think it helps maintain an intentional practice that’s consistent with my own values’