Bridging Visual Arts & Healthcare: Impact, Innovation, Research

Bridging Visual Arts & Healthcare: Impact, Innovation, Research is organized by Mass General Brigham Office of Continuing Professional Development and will be held from Sep 23 - 25, 2026 at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Massachusetts, United States of America.

Description:
Founded in 2022, the Visual Arts in Healthcare Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (VAH@BWH) is a national leader in the application of visual arts to train healthcare professionals. VAH@BWH’s mission is to develop and advance visual arts-based learning experiences to cultivate empathetic, resourceful, and collaborative healthcare teams to improve patient care. Our programs help build the core skills of the healthcare professional, including detailed observation and interpretation, active listening, metacognitive awareness, critical thinking, compassion, and effective bidirectional communication. The VAH@BWH will host an international symposium, Bridging Visual Arts & Healthcare: Impact, Innovation, Research, in Boston on September 23-25, 2026 (Wednesday – Friday). This symposium aims to build community between the visual arts and healthcare professions, educators, and artists. Through an exchange of methodologies and emerging research, participants will share unique curricula and learn about the emerging evidence to improve healthcare professionals’ skills and effectiveness as well as positively impact patient outcomes.

Learning Objectives:
Upon completion of this activity, participants will be able to:

1. Describe new methods to integrate visual arts-based methodologies into health care education to improve patient and provider experiences.
2. Summarize and discuss impactful research, evidence-based evaluation, and scholarship that will move the field forward.
3. Create a community of practice comprised of arts/humanities and health care educators at all levels and in all healthcare disciplines to build collaboration.
4. Demonstrate knowledge, skills, resources, and tested practice-ready innovations in teaching.