Event to explore visual arts’ impact on critical thinking

The Healing Arts Program is hosting a free workshop for UNMC students at 2 p.m. Tuesday in the Yanney Conference Center at the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center.

“Roger,” oil on canvas, by Mark Gilbert, Ph.D., 2007

Mark Gilbert, Ph.D., will hold an interactive workshop — “How the Visual Arts Can Foster Critical Thinking in Medicine” — that will engage attendees in the interpretation of fine art images and group discussion to illustrate how the visual arts can be used to foster critical thinking from a clinical perspective.

The event will:

• Describe the benefits of team based versus individual problem solving.
• Explain how the (visual) arts and humanities can be used to foster critical thinking.
• Develop examples of critical thinking in the participant’s own setting.

Dr. Gilbert, a UNMC alum, has worked on a number of high profile art-based research projects using portraiture to illuminate patient and caregiver experience of illness, recovery and care. These studies include “Saving Faces” at The Royal London Hospitals and “Portraits of Care” at UNMC.

The resultant exhibitions have been exhibited widely in venues across Europe and the U.S., including “Saving Faces” at the National Portrait Gallery, London.

At UNMC, Dr. Gilbert’s research focused on the interdisciplinary field of art and medicine, recognizing that non-discursive methods (e.g. pictures, music, dance, poetry, etc.) can be forms of research.

He is currently research associate with the Medical Humanities Program at Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, Canada, where he continues to explore the relationship between the arts, humanities and medicine and their application in medical education.

For questions on the event, contact The Healing Arts Center.