General Interest: Innovative UCSD Program Aims to Draw Compassion Out of Future Doctors
By: Kinsee Morlan
Submitted by: Michael Maury, UCSD School of Medicine

As Standardized Patient Educators one of our many tasks is to foster and build empathy within our student doctors. We can accomplish this in many different ways. Since many of us in the SP world come from theatrical backgrounds, we are aware of the value of the performing arts in building compassion toward others. We know that acting and theatre has a built-in empathic element which can be passed on to any learner who is open and willing to partake whole-heartedly in theatre games and improvisational exercises. What if there were other artistic endeavors that could accomplish this goal as well? In fact, there are such opportunities and in this article, author Kinsee Morlan describes an artist-in-residency program at the UC San Diego School of Medicine that has students sketch live nude models, real human skeletons and eventually cadavers helping them focus on details that build their abilities for empathy and compassion. Created by artist Joyce Cutler-Shaw and now currently taught by Larry and Debbie Kline, “the goal of the drawing class is not to turn doctors into artists, but to build empathy through art. The students will go on to be doctors, and the goal is to make them doctors who care.” Read the full article in Voice of San Diego here.

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