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‘I now have a visual image in my mind and it is something I will never forget’: an analysis of an arts-informed approach to health professions ethics education

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Abstract

This paper reports on a study of an arts informed approach to ethics education in a health professions education context. The purpose of this study was to investigate students’ reported learning experiences as a result of engagement with an arts-informed project in a health professions’ ethics course. A hermeneutic phenomenological methodological approach was adopted for the study. The data were collected over 5 years, and involved analysis of 234 occupational therapy students’ written reflections on learning. Phenomenological methods were used. Five key themes were identified with respect to students’ reported learning including: becoming aware of values, (re) discovering creativity, coming to value reflection in professional life, deepening self-awareness, and developing capacities to imagine future practices. There appear to be a number of unique ways in which arts-informed approaches can contribute to health professions education including: activating imaginative engagement, fostering interpretive capacity, inspiring transformative understandings, offering new ways of knowing, deepening reflection, and heightening consciousness, while also enriching the inner life of practitioners. Innovative approaches are being used to introduce arts-informed practices in health professions curricula programs. The findings point to the promise of arts-informed approaches for advancing health sciences education.

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Acknowledgments

Appreciation is extended to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for funding of this research. The authors would like to thank University of Western Ontario for support of this research, and offer special thanks to the student participants for generously granting permission for their written reflections to serve as data for this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Health Sciences, School of Occupational Therapy, University of Western Ontario, 1201 Western Rd., Elborn College, London, ON, N6G 1H1, Canada

    Elizabeth Anne Kinsella & Susan Bidinosti

  2. Centre for Education Research and Innovation, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Western Ontario, Health Sciences Addition, Room 110B, London, ON, N6A 5C1, Canada

    Elizabeth Anne Kinsella

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  1. Elizabeth Anne Kinsella
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Correspondence to Elizabeth Anne Kinsella.

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Kinsella, E.A., Bidinosti, S. ‘I now have a visual image in my mind and it is something I will never forget’: an analysis of an arts-informed approach to health professions ethics education. Adv in Health Sci Educ 21, 303–322 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10459-015-9628-7

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