“My turbinado sugar”: Art-making, well-being and professional identity in medical education

Background: There is strong evidence supporting the personal and professional benefits for medical students of exposure to art. There is limited information on art-making in relation to medical education. Methods: We explored art-making within medical education by analysing 76 artist statements submitted with visual artwork by students, residents and practitioners to the 2010 and 2011 White Coat Warm Art exhibitions. We analysed the data using grounded theory strategies to identify how medical students and practitioners describe their engagement in artistic creation and how it impacts their personal and professional lives. Results: Our analysis yielded eight themes that illustrated instrumental, humanistic and advocacy-oriented implications of art-making: enhancing learning, escaping constraints, balancing life and work, surviving, expressing self-identity and discovering professional identity, bearing witness, healing self and others, and advocating change. Conclusions: Art-making can play a valuable role in medical education by providing a means of making sense of, and learning foundational information and concepts in medicine. Creative expression through artistic means also provides learners and practitioners a means of exploring their emerging sense of professional identity and clarifying their value commitments. In addition, the experience of art-making fosters well-being, empathy and commitment towards a better future for medicine.