Bedside education in the art of medicine (BEAM): A learner's perspective on arts-based teaching

In today's culture of the medical profession, it is fairly unusual for students to actually witness physicians talking with patients about anything outside scientific explanation. That other side of medicine - the one that goes beyond explanation to understanding - goes unexplored, and the patient's personal narrative is consequently less understood. Meanwhile, though reflective writing is the most frequently used didactic method to promote introspection and deeper consolidation of new ideas for medical learners, there is robust evidence that other art forms - such as storytelling, dance, theatre, literature and the visual arts - can also help deepen reflection and understanding of the human aspect of medical practice. The overall goal of the Bedside Education in the Art of Medicine (BEAM) project is to redress these issues through early interventions within the culture of the medical profession. By creating an arts-based humanities curriculum, we hope to broaden medical learners' understanding and shine a light on what it means - for patients and clinicians - to be human, live well, experience loss, encounter disease, and engage in a therapeutic relationship. BEAM is envisioned as a modular, online resource of "third things" that any clinician anywhere will be able to access via a smartphone application to deliver brief, focused, humanistic clinical teaching in either hospital or ambulatory care settings. This commentary foregrounds a learner's perspective to model BEAM's usage in an in-depth manner; it examines the relation of a painting by Edward Hopper to medical education through the lens of a poem by Victoria Chang, in the context of the BEAM web-based app educational resource. By assessing the poignancy of the painting via the poem, I demonstrate the capacity of the arts and humanities in medical education, with a specific focus on the development of interpretative skills and tolerance for ambiguity that all authentic, engaged physicians need.