“There’s a nice simple idea that when scientists and artists work together, the scientist gives an idea to the artist, the artist represents it to the public, and the public learn to love science more,” says Professor John McLachlan, who moved to the newPeninsula Medical School (PMS) in 2001 as Director of Phase 1. “That can happen, it’s valid. But people sometimes overlook the fact that working with an artist also stimulates creativity in the scientist. Both individuals are changed at the end of it.”

Indeed, he feels that working with artist Helen Storey was transformational for him as a scientist. Struck by her Primitive Streak exhibition – a series of 27 garments chronicling the 1000 hours of embryonic development following fertilisation – he was keen to use her images as a teaching device. “I phoned Helen up and we had a chat which has now lasted for three years,” he says.

The ‘chat’ resulted in a successful Sciart grant application to create a new science–art exhibition, Mental, five interactive installations exploring what happens in people’s minds when they are doing something creative.

The collaboration resulted in a paper about sex determination in humans published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, with both scientist and artist as joint authors – a unique development in science–art partnerships.

A lesson for teaching

Another significant result of the collaboration was its influence on the teaching methodology Professor McLachlan introduced to the PMS. One of four new medical schools established by the UK government, the PMS is founded on a partnership between the Universities of Exeter and Plymouth and the NHS in Devon and Cornwall. It was established in August 2000, and began delivering its undergraduate programme in September 2002.

The PMS is committed to integrating the arts and humanities into the medical teaching curriculum. “We want to encourage students to see patients as individuals in particular social and cultural contexts, and to think about what people’s bodies mean to them by engaging with poetry writing, life-drawing, sculpture and photography,” says Professor McLachlan. “We feel this approach to medical educationnurtures the skills and abilities required by doctors of the future.”

The arts and the humanities are, he stresses, an integral part of the medical training. “We don’t want students to think of the arts as being something separate: to put them in a ghetto and consider them something they’re doing instead of the medical part of the course. We want to find ways of merging them. For example, at the moment two of the course units include a drama performance mediated by an experienced GP. The actors work through scenarios, the GP then freezes the actors and asks the students to come forward and be characters in the drama – the receptionist, practice nurse, GP, parent or child. It’s enormous fun, which is a vital impetus to effective learning. Students come out buzzing, really having grasped the important issues.”

The medical school also draws upon historical contexts, collaborating with the historians at the University of Exeter, a group supported by a Wellcome history of medicine Strategic Award.

To help develop and integrate this new curriculum, Professor McLachlan was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship by the Higher Education Funding Council for England. Part of the award, which he is using to explore the links between anatomy and art, will go towards developing The Human Journey. This live community performance piece will form part of the Theatre of Science programme, to be run by a partnership between the PMS and the Theatre Royal Plymouth, in which Professor McLachlan is closely involved.

Innovation

The PMS is unique in that it is the first medical school to teach anatomy without using cadavers. “One of the disadvantages about dissecting dead bodies is that it may desensitise students,” says Professor McLachlan. “If your first introduction to the human body is taking it apart, that may not be a very good way of encouraging empathy. We don’t want doctors to think of living people as animated corpses.”

Again, in an attempt to shape a form of medical training that mirrors the real-life experience of being a doctor, the course is case based, rather than divided into academic subjects like anatomy and physiology and biochemistry. “We also get students to meet their patients in a community setting very early on. Again, that more realistically reflects what’s happening in the real world. A lot of people who are ill are still living at home, rather than staying in hospital. And a lot of people who visit doctors aren’t acutely ill. We want our students to understand that perhaps the most important aspects of their career as a doctor will be in promoting health and preventing illness, rather than focusing solely on curing disease.”

In another unorthodox move, PMS students embark on their clinical skills training in the very first week. “We prefer to send students out on community attachments relevant to the case that they’re discussing. So if they’re discussing a pregnancy case, they visit family planning clinics with community midwives and learn relevant clinical skills, such as how to take blood pressure and measure a pregnant abdomen.”

Perhaps one of the more hair-raising innovations – certainly for the students – is the approach to exams. First-year students find themselves sitting their final exams two weeks after starting at the PMS. Indeed, students in every year – from the first to the fifth year, will sit exactly the same examination – four times a year. “It can be a bit hard on first-year students who are used to getting A grades when they find themselves getting 8 per cent in their first final exam. But we give them a lot of support and explain that that’s entirely OK, and that as they move on through the years, they’ll be seeing their marks go up and up, reflecting the progress they’re making.”

An important part of the PMS’s activities is to encourage students in disadvantaged schools to think about taking up a career in medicine. “Medicine is the most class-distorted course in higher education,” says Professor McLachlan. “People in disadvantaged schools don’t apply to do medicine. The problem is not ability, it’s that they think ‘being a doctor is not for the likes of me’.” To try and address that problem, PMS students will take drama performances into disadvantaged schools to give students there an insight into what’s involved in becoming and being a doctor.

It’s also a way of letting schools know how the PMS operates and attracting students who are interested in the humanities as well as being a doctor. “There’s some evidence that students who come in with some arts and humanities actually do better than those who have just focused on sciences, and that they make better doctors. We’d like to move away from the idea that it’s best to have three science A levels.”

He emphasises that his experience working with Helen Storey was hugely influential. “Working with an artist made me a better scientist,” he says simply. That experience informed the design of the PMS course – and perhaps will in turn shape the attitude and approach of the doctors of the future.

External links

• Peninsula Medical School