The Fine Art of Health Care: Visual Thinking Strategies for Interprofessional Skills Development in Graduate Nurse Anesthesia Education

Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) is a methodology designed to teach critical thinking, communication, and visual literacy. The Fine Art of Health Care is a VTS-based educational program that brings students from various health-care disciplines to the Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami in Florida. Twenty-six nurse anesthesia, medical, physical therapy, nursing, and psychology students participated in the workshop during the 2016 fall semester. The students completed an anonymous survey to evaluate their experience. All participants agreed or strongly agreed that VTS helped them understand how to hone their observational and listening skills; 92% agreed that looking at and discussing art has merit with regards to collaborative practice; 96% agreed that VTS helped them improve their communication skills; and 93% found value in the VTS workshop because it provided opportunity to meet and have discussions with students from other disciplines. The arts and humanities have long been recognized as important tools for building multidisciplinary collaboration in health education. There is growing evidence that integrating the arts into the nursing curriculum can have powerful outcomes. These capabilities proved useful in the nurse anesthesia curriculum by allowing skillful conceptualization, and originality and leveling of the playing field for all health-care students.