Understanding Breast Cancer Images in Art History as a Form of Health Communication.

Can art and visual images meant for public consumption (museums, galleries, social media platforms) serve as a critical form of health communication for breast cancer patients? For their clinicians? For the population at large? Art history research methods are applied to a range of breast cancer images in western art in order to understand what the images communicate to us about patient experience, agency, and inequity in health care at the time of their construction. The following is a selective look at western art as it reflects and informs our understanding of breast cancer over time.

The Art and Heart of a Community: Lamar Dodd's The Heart Series in LaGrange, Georgia.

Lamar Dodd was a 20th century American artist, the long-term director of the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia, and an arts advocate raised in LaGrange, Georgia. In the late 1970s after serving as a cultural emissary to the U.S. Department of State and as an artist for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Dodd explored the complexities and mysteries of cardiac surgery. The result of this artistic inquiry was The Heart Series, a profound collection of more than 50 works of art that explore the medical sciences and cardiothoracic surgery. This article reviews Dodd's artistic career and explores the ability of the visual arts to communicate scientific content and capture the transcendent elements of medical intervention. Special attention is paid to the unique relationship Dodd shared with his hometown community in LaGrange, the Wellstar West Georgia Medical Center, Robert Copeland (founder and long-term director of the Copeland Heart and Vascular Center at the Wellstar West Georgia Medical Center), and local philanthropist, Fuller E. Callaway, Jr.

Design, implementation, and reflections on a two-week virtual visual arts and medicine course for third- and fourth-year medical students.

BACKGROUND: Medical humanities courses that incorporate the visual arts traditionally require in-person instruction and visits to museums. The COVID-19 pandemic afforded medical educators a unique opportunity to implement and evaluate virtual visual arts programming. METHODS: A two-week, 7-module visual arts and medicine elective course for third and fourth-year medical students was conducted virtually in the Spring of 2021. The course included traditional didactic components as well as a range of hands-on creative art activities including painting, graphic medicine, photovoice, and Kintsugi (Japanese craft). Digital tools including Canvas, Google Jamboard, and Zoom facilitated student engagement. Student feedback was collected through anonymous post-course surveys. RESULTS: We successfully conducted a virtual visual arts and medicine elective which integrated hands-on creative art activities. Most students "strongly agreed" that remote instruction was sufficient to meet course objectives. However, all students also "agreed" that in-person instruction may promote more in-depth engagement with the visual arts. The hands-on creative art activities were appreciated by all students. CONCLUSION: Visual arts-based medical humanities courses can be delivered virtually and can include hands-on creative art activities such as painting. Future visual arts and medicine courses may benefit from incorporating a range of pedagogical methodologies, digital tools, control groups, and pre-/post-course assessments.

Carrying a Community on Their Shoulders: Virgil's Aeneas and the Duty of Healthcare Workers.

The term "duty' has occurred frequently in discussions about the role of healthcare professionals in the current pandemic. Duty can take multiple forms in the professional and private worlds of those working to save the lives of others. At times, different forms of duty create confliciting demands, necessitating some kind of sacrifice. This dilemma is not new; it was a central theme of Virgil's Aeneid, the best known epic poem of ancient Rome. Statues and paintings of a scene from this poem, in which a man carries his father on his shoulders to safety from a burning city, became the most common representation of duty in Rome after the first century BCE and were frequently copied in later ages. Examining how Virgil's poem and these images communicate the rewards, complexity, ambiguity, and costs of duty can contribute to our understanding of the experiences of those who work to heal others in this lethal pandemic. Like Aeneas, the mythical Roman, healthcare workers have been called heroes of duty as they are asked to carry their entire communities on their shoulders.

Face Masks: Their History and the Values They Communicate.

Masks, now recommended and worn by a growing proportion of the world's population, have reflected various perceived meaning across time. This paper provides a brief history of the socio-cultural perceptions attached to wearing a mask by surveying how masks were perceived in ancient Greece and Rome, the origins of medical masks, and the ascribed socio-cultural meaning of masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. The use of a mask has historically diverse perceived meanings; currently, wearing a mask communicates a bipolar socio-cultural meaning and a nuanced, divisive symbology. To some, masks communicate a belief in medical science and a desire to protect one's neighbor from contagion. To others, a mask communicates oppression, government overreach, and a skepticism toward established scientific principles. It is the mask's ability to signal a deception, or extrapolated more broadly, a value system, that is highly relevant to current public health guidelines encouraging mask use to decrease the transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. Public health officials and providers should utilize evidence-based health communication strategies when findings warrant a reversed recommendation of a symbol (such as masks) with a legacy of socio-cultural underpinnings that are deep-seated, complex, and emotional.

Association of Arts Event Attendance With Cognitive Function Among Older Adults Enrolled in the Health and Retirement Study.

Background and Objectives: Among the cognitively impaired, arts engagement is associated with improved neurocognitive symptoms. Less is known about arts engagement as a potentially modifiable lifestyle factor to prevent or slow cognitive decline. Our aim was to evaluate the association between arts event attendance and cognition. Research Design and Methods: We used data from the 2014 and 2016 waves of the Health and Retirement Study to evaluate the association between arts event attendance and cognition using multivariable linear regressions. Arts event attendance in 2014 was our exposure of interest and included visiting an art museum or art gallery; attending an arts or crafts fair; attending a live performance (concert, play, or reading); and/or going to a movie theater. Cognitive function in 2016 measured on a 27-point scale by the Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status was our main outcome of interest. Results: Of the 1,149 participants included in the final analysis, 70.7% attended an arts event. The mean baseline cognitive score was higher among those who attended art events (16.8 [standard deviation {SD}, ±3.8] vs 13.8 [SD, ±5.0]; p < .001). In our multivariable regressions, those who attended arts events in 2014 exhibited higher cognitive scores in 2016 after controlling for demographic, socioeconomic, health, and baseline cognitive covariates (ß, 1.07 [95% confidence interval {CI}, 0.50-1.64]; p < .001). This association was primarily observed in those with lower baseline cognitive function (ß, 1.19 [95% CI, 0.33-2.06]; p = .008). Discussion and Implications: Arts event attendance may be associated with better cognitive function. Given concerns for residual confounding and reverse causality, this association warrants further study.

Quantitative metrics and psychometric scales in the visual art and medical education literature: a narrative review.

The authors conduct a narrative review of the quantitative observation metrics and psychometric scales utilized in the visual arts and medical education literature in order to provide medical educators with a 'toolkit' of quantitative metrics with which to design and evaluate novel visual arts-based pedagogies. These efforts are intended to support the AAMC and National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's aims to formally evaluate and integrate arts and humanities curricula into traditional scientific educational programming. The scales reviewed examine a variety of domains including tolerance for ambiguity, bias, burnout, communication, empathy, grit, and mindfulness/reflection. Observation skill, given the heterogeneity of quantitative metrics, is reviewed separately.

Nurturing Context: TRACE, the Arts, Medical Practice, and Health Literacy.

This chapter builds upon prior research on the interconnectedness of context to content as it relates to health and health literacy. The authors focus on the use of the arts as a novel way to engage with and to promote health and health communication. Most published efforts exploring the humanities and health emphasize how healthcare practitioners can enhance their clinical skills, promote wellness, and prevent burnout through engagement with the arts. The current chapter adds how the arts inform us about health, and more broadly, the lessons to be learned from appreciating multidimensional contexts. The authors underscore the role of the arts to address context and introduce how the arts impact health literacy. The authors provide an overview of TRACE, a unique pedagogical program that explores both the content and context communicated via the arts, with a focus on lessons for medicine and health, including health literacy. The chapter suggests enhanced provider apperception via arts exposure has implications to improve clinical practice and health literacy.