Art Museum-based Health Professions Education Fellowship
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.
In-person course dates for the 2025/2026 cohort will be October 17–19, 2025 and April 10-12, 2026. Boston is home to several world class cultural institutions, and the Fellowship will introduce innovative ways to use the art museum environment to advance health professions educational goals. All Fellows must be able to attend both in-person sessions. A cornerstone of the Fellowship is the development of a curricular project. Between October and April, project development is supported by monthly meetings with a project group and coaching from the Fellowship faculty.
Monthly office hours with faculty are also offered. Finally, guest lectures on relevant topics occur 4-5 times between October and April. All sessions are recorded.
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.
Tuition includes interdisciplinary teaching sessions with museum and health professions educators, museum admission, and materials. It does not include travel or lodging for your stays in Boston. This fellowship is presented in partnership with the Visual Arts in Healthcare Program at Brigham & Women's Hospital.
The deadline for applications to the 2025-2026 cohort have been extended to 11:59 pm eastern time on March 15, 2025.
The deadline for applications to the 2025-2026 cohort have been extended to 11:59 pm eastern time on March 15, 2025.
Jessica Lewis, Administrative Manager, Harvard Macy Institute Art Museum-based
Health Professions Education Fellowship
coordinator.hmimbe@gmail.com
For a full list of fellowship graduates and projects, please follow this link.
For a full list of fellowship graduates and projects, please follow this link.
The goals of the Fellowship are to:
- Teach Fellows innovative ways to use art and the art museum to advance health professions educational goals, skills and attitudes.
- Support Fellows’ personal and professional development through transformative experiences that invite deep reflection on professional identity and purpose
- Advance Fellows’ institutional projects and other curriculum development
- Cultivate a community of practice and scholarly advancement of the field
Upon completion of this program, Fellows will be able to:
- use art and the art museum to advance health professions educational goals, skills and attitudes including:
- 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
see above for more information.
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.
Continuing Medical Education (CME) is not available for the Art Museum-based Health Professions Education Fellowship.
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
Co-author of Activating the Art Museum: Designing Experiences for the Health Professions
Pooja C Rutberg
Assistant Professor in Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School
John David Ike, MD, MSc
Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hospital Medicine at Duke University School of Medicine and a Faculty Associate in the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities, & History of Medicine