Art Museum-based Health Professions Education Fellowship
- Harvard Macy Institute
Advance your professional growth by exploring art and museum-based teaching practices that foster critical reflection, deepen humanistic skills, and support innovative curriculum design within health professions education.
- Blended
This program includes both virtual and in-person sessions.
Please see more program fee information below.
Certificate
Continuing Medical Education (CME) is not available for the Art Museum-based Health Professions Education Fellowship.
A Certificate of Completion is awarded.
7 Months, 2 Required Workshops
In between the in-person workshops, you will participate in monthly live online sessions.
On This Page
Overview
The Art Museum-based Health Professions Education Fellowship prepares participants to engage the rich museum environment to advance health professional learning. Fellows join an international community of practice that is deeply sustaining, and many of our graduates become leaders in the field. This hands-on, experiential program emphasizes learning through practice and reflection. Fellows engage with key teaching methods used in art museum-based education, such as Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), the Personal Responses Tour, Thinking Routines, and Narrative Writing. They will also explore other art forms, metaphor, and mindful practices to deepen their teaching approach.
Learning Objectives
- Use art and the art museum to advance health professions educational goals, skills and attitudes.
- Enhancing observation, communication, and interpretation skills.
- Promoting empathy, compassion, and perspective-taking.
- Fostering reflective practices.
- Cultivating metacognitive awareness, including recognizing assumptions and biases, and tolerating uncertainty.
- Developing professionalism and professional identity.
- Encouraging multidisciplinary teamwork and collaboration.
- Advancing leadership skills.
- Understand how to design and evaluate engaging and relevant museum-based curricula and workshops.
- Advocate for the fundamental role that the arts and museum-based practices can play in health professions education.
Developed and Offered By:
Harvard Macy Institute presents this fellowship in partnership with the Visual Arts in Healthcare Program at Brigham & Women's Hospital.
About the Program
The Art Museum-based Health Professions Education Fellowship prepares participants to engage the rich museum environment to advance health professional learning. Fellows join an international community of practice that is deeply sustaining, and many of our graduates become leaders in the field. This hands-on, experiential program emphasizes learning through practice and reflection. Fellows engage with key teaching methods used in art museum-based education, such as Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), the Personal Responses Tour, Thinking Routines, and Narrative Writing. They will also explore other art forms, metaphor, and mindful practices to deepen their teaching approach.
For a full list of fellowship graduates and projects, please follow this link.
Program Format
The Fellowship takes place over 7 months. Two required in-person immersive experiences will be held in Boston, one at the beginning of the Fellowship (October 17-19, 2025) and one at the end (April 10-12, 2026). Monthly meetings between the two immersion sessions focus on project development and program evaluation. Fellows will use an online learning platform between in-person sessions to share project developments, reflections and resources. Prior to the first session, Fellows will be assigned core readings and will meet each other virtually. The majority of our time together in Boston will be used for gallery-based educational experiences and exploration of relevant connections to core themes in health professions education. In the final in-person session, participants will teach in the galleries and present developed projects to one another.
Who Should Apply
Priority selection is given to those already actively engaged in museum-based educational activities. The successful applicant will have strong support from their home institution and identified a potential museum partner for their museum-based educational activities.
Program Faculty
The program is led by a distinguished teaching team of experts in medical education, who bring a wealth of experience and a commitment to supporting your growth as an educator and leader in the health care field.
Elizabeth Gaufberg
MD, MPH
- Associate Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
- Director, Cambridge Health Alliance Center for Professional and Academic Development
Lisa Wong
MD
- Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School
- Associate co-Director, Arts and Humanities Initiative, Harvard Medical School
Corinne Zimmermann, MA, MEd
Course Director
- Founding Co-Director, Harvard Macy Art Museum-Based Health Profession Education Fellowship
- Co-Founder, VTS@Work®
- Co-author, Activating the Art Museum: Designing Experiences for the Health Professions
- Corinne Zimmermann Consultancy, LLC
Ray Williams, MA, MEd
Director of Education and Academic Affairs, Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin
Co-author of Activating the Art Museum: Designing Experiences for the Health Professions
Pooja C Rutberg
Assistant Professor in Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School
John David Ike, MD, MSc
Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hospital Medicine, Duke University School of Medicine
Faculty Associate in the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities, & History of Medicine
Program Fee
Tuition includes interdisciplinary teaching sessions with museum and health professions educators, museum admission, and materials. Program fees do not include airfare, accommodation, or meals. Review Cancellation Policy
| Program Fee | |
|---|---|
| Application Deadline: March 15, 2025 | $6,100 |
Learner Stories and Insights
The Art of Education: The Harvard Macy Institute’s Art Museum-based Health Professions Education Fellowship
In this Harvard Macy Institute blog post, Corinne Zimmermann and Elizabeth Gaufberg discuss the development of the HMI Art Museum Fellowship in Health Professions Education.
Perspectives on Art Museum-based Education as a Powerful Tool in Medical Education
In this Harvard Macy Institute blog post, Manasa S. Ayyala, MD and Mary E. Hiller, MSc discuss their perspectives on art museum.
Art as Antidote: Fostering Empathy, Self-Knowledge, and Resilience in the Art Museum
In this Harvard Macy Institute blog post, Ali John Zarrabi discusses the integration of art museum-based education into palliative care training.
Request Information
Interested in learning more about this program? Sign up for details.