Teaching Slow Clinical Observation Through Art: A Museum-Based Innovation in Undergraduate Nursing Education

Health professions education needs learning experiences that help students practise careful observation, evidence-based description, interpretive reasoning and attention to the human dimensions of illness. Undergraduate nursing education still needs clearly described, theory-informed and transferable museum-based models that move beyond cultural enrichment.

We designed a curriculum-embedded museum-based innovation for first-year nursing students. Its central contribution is a transferable sequence for slow, deliberate and dialogic observation: preparation, slow looking, evidence-based description, facilitated interpretation, humanistic reflection and clinical transfer.

The activity was delivered at the Museo Nacional del Prado across two academic years and was informed by visual thinking approaches, experiential learning and reflective practice. Students engaged with selected artworks as complex visual and human situations rather than diagnostic riddles.

We used anonymous pre- and post-activity questionnaires across two cohorts, supported by open-ended responses, faculty field notes and voluntary student reflections. A total of 874 valid questionnaires were analysed as unmatched group-level responses. Students reported higher post-activity scores in perceived knowledge, observational skills and educational value, with smaller differences in empathy. Descriptive qualitative content analysis suggested that students valued close looking, art-medicine integration and clinical relevance.

The evaluation supports feasibility, acceptability and implementation stability, not objective improvement in clinical performance. Key lessons concern how to design and facilitate museum-based learning: preserve the slow observation sequence, avoid reducing artworks to diagnoses, and pair humanistic reflection with transfer to nursing practice.