Training our Eyes, Minds and Hearts: Visual Thinking Strategies for Health Care Professionals
- Continuing Education
Acquire transformative, evidence-based tools for enhancing patient care, teamwork, and personal well-being in this immersive, accredited course led by experts from Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
- Live Online
This course is taught online in real time.
This is the standard price, for a full list of profession pricing see below.
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Fee increases to after
Continuing Education
Earn up to:
33.00 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s) ™
33.00 ANCC contact hours
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Six Months, Two Sessions Per Month
Please view the Schedule for a full description of the program.
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Overview
This course, the first accredited continuing education activity of its kind, trains health care professionals at all levels to facilitate and apply Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) techniques and mindsets in classrooms, meetings, clinics, and hospitals. Learning and applying VTS strengthens humanistic and analytic competencies and can transform medical education, patient care, teamwork, equity, and professional growth. Due to the highly experiential nature of this course, we strongly recommend participants attend the majority of classes in real time.
VTS is a methodology for leading and participating in discussions about complex, ambiguous materials like visual art. Developed in art museums, it has spread to education, health care, and the business world. Harvard Medical School's ongoing course, Training the Eye, pioneered the application of VTS within medical education in 2004, and the method is now applied at more than thirty medical schools. Peer-reviewed studies demonstrate that VTS helps health care educators and providers hone observation, critical thinking, and active listening skills; develop tolerance for uncertainty; foster empathic communication, psychological safety and respect; facilitate difficult conversations; surface assumptions and biases; and cultivate a reflective practice of mindfulness and self-compassion.
Learning to facilitate VTS discussions effectively and fluidly requires practice and feedback over time and combines inner and outer work; therefore, a crucial aspect of the course is its longevity and serial practice sessions. For part of every class session, we will practice VTS in small, inter-professional breakout groups, each with an expert VTS coach, to deepen community, self-awareness, and peer feedback skills. Each course participant will have multiple opportunities for practice. They will develop reflective capacities, using their deepening VTS skills to emphasize growth, self-awareness, and flexibility. As the course progresses, we will use VTS to look at art, data sets, medical images, plans, patients, and more.
Each session will also focus on a theme. The course connects the skills and mindsets of VTS to key topics in health care and helps learners make direct connections to improving their own professional practices, contexts, and programs. Themes include the following: empathic communication, critical thinking skills, bias mitigation, anti-racism and health equity, psychological safety, facilitative leadership, and self-compassion.
In addition to becoming a proficient VTS facilitator, participants will develop a final project detailing how they will implement VTS in their professional work going forward that includes: needs assessment, goals and objectives, and implementation and evaluation strategies, with an option for ultimately contributing to the field though publication. The course offers “VTS@Work"
Learning Objectives
- Recognize the relevance and value of VTS for workplace application and be able to communicate that value to colleagues.
- Critically reflect on their own thinking patterns, values, assumptions, and mindsets.
- Practice the basics of image selection.
- Propose a plan to build a partnership with an Art Museum.
- Present a well-reasoned plan to improve education and/or clinical care that their own institution.
- Develop a network of interprofessional colleagues who can provide support for future work in this field.
Developed and Offered By:
Continuing Education courses are developed by faculty from Harvard Medical School's teaching hospitals and accredited by Harvard Medical School. This course is offered by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Who Should Participate
Primary Care Physicians, Specialty Physicians, Nurses, Nurse Practitioners, Pharmacists, Physician Assistants, and Psychologists.
Schedule Descriptions
Faculty
Harvard Medical School Continuing Education attracts the best and brightest faculty from all around the world. As a student in this course, you’ll have access to outstanding course directors and faculty.
Joel Katz, MD, MACP
Course Director
- Vice Chair for Education, Marshall A. Wolf Distinguished Chair in Medical Education
- Senior Vice President for Education, Dana Farber Cancer Institute
- Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Dabney Hailey, MA
Course Director
- Founder and Principal of Hailey Consulting Group
- Co-Founder, VTS@Work®
- Co-Director of the HMS course, Training the Eye: Improving the Art of Physical Diagnosis
- Lecturer, MIT Sloan School of Management
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
Neal Baer, MD
Co-Director, Master of Science in Media, Medicine, and Health, Co-Director, Media and Medicine Certificate of Completion Program
Executive Producer and Showrunner, Designated Survivor, NetflixMedia Program Co-Director
Kamna Balhara, MD, MA
Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine
Associate Professor of Medicine, Science and Humanities, Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences
Co-Director, Health Humanities at Hopkins Emergency Medicine, Johns Hopkins University
Brooke Digiovanni Evans, MEd
Concentration in Learning and Teaching; Certificate in Non-Profit Management and Leadership
Co-Founder and Director of Center for Visual Arts in Healthcare Program, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Sarah Milla, MD, FAAP
John D Strain Endowed Chair in Radiology, Children's Hospital Colorado
Professor of Radiology and Pediatrics, University of Colorado School of Medicine
Adjunct Faculty, University of Colorado Center for Bioethics and Humanities
Shari Tishman, MD
Senior Research Associate & Principal Investigator, Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Ray Williams, MA, MEd
Director of Education and Academic Affairs, The Blanton Museum, University of Texas, Austin
Margaret S. Chisolm, MD
Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Professor of Medicine
Author of 2022 Nautilus Book Award winner, From Survive to Thrive: Living Your Best Life with Mental Illness
Director, The Paul McHugh Program for Human Flourishing
Member, Miller Coulson Academy of Clinical Excellence, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Michelle Grohe, MA
Senior Consultant, Hailey Group
Art Museum Educator and Consultant.
Dabney Hailey, MA
Founder and Principal, Hailey Group
Co-Founder, VTS@Work®
Co-Director of the HMS course, Training the Eye: Improving the Art of Physical Diagnosis
Sara E. Hart, PhD, RN
Professor (Clinical), Health Systems and Community-based Care
Senior Faculty Associate for Education, Family Caregiving Collaborative
Fellow, Academy of Health Sciences Educators
John David Ike, MD, MSc
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Dept. of Medicine (Hospital Medicine)
Faculty Associate, Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities, & History of Medicine
Duke University School of Medicine
Joel Katz, MD, MACP
Vice Chair for Education, Marshall A. Wolf Distinguished Chair in Medical Education, Director, Internal Medicine Residency Program, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School
Anson Koshy, MD, MBE
Associate Professor of Pediatrics
Chief, Division of Developmental Pediatrics
Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU
Corinne Zimmermann, MA, MEd
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
Consultant and Professional Coach
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Medical Education Learning Opportunities
Harvard Medical School offers a range of medical education programs designed for health professions educators and leaders, with flexible formats and durations to fit diverse learning goals.
Learning Opportunity *Harvard Macy Program | Format | Duration | Audience |
|---|---|---|---|
| *Program for Educators in Health Professions | Live Online and in-person | 7 months | Emerging education leaders in the health professions |
| Training to Teach in Medicine | Live Online | 6 months | Clinician educators at all stages |
| *Technology and AI: Transforming Health Professions Education | Live Online | 8 weeks | Health professions educators at all career stages |
| *Leading Innovation in Health Care and Education | In-Person | 6 days | Health professions educators and leaders at all career stages |
| *Assessment and Evaluation: Systems Thinking in Health Professions Education | Live Online | 5 days | Health professions educators and leaders at all career stages |
| Principles of Medical Education: Maximizing Your Teaching Skills | Live Online | 3 days | Medical educators at all career stages |
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Course Fees
Registration Details
You may register through our secure online environment and will receive an email confirmation upon receipt of your payment. Prices include CME credit, electronic syllabus, and access to some recordings for 60 days after the course.
At the end of the registration process, a $10 non-refundable processing fee will be added to your registration.
Early Registration Deadline:
Accreditation
The Harvard Medical School designates this live activity for a maximum of AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
Harvard Medical School designates this live activity for a maximum of 33.00 ANCC contact hours.
The National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants (NCCPA) states that AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ are acceptable for continuing medical education requirements for recertification. We would also suggest that learners check with their state licensing board to ensure they accept reciprocity with AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™ for re-licensure.
The American Medical Association (AMA) has an agreement of mutual recognition of continuing medical education (CME) credit with the European Union of Medical Specialties (UEMS). Additional information regarding this agreement may be found on the European Union of Medical Specialties website.
The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada recognizes conferences and workshops held outside of Canada that are developed by a university, academy, hospital, specialty society or college as accredited group learning activities.