The Circular Health Humanities Lab is an experiential learning opportunity offered by the One Health Center where students can research and learn how the humanities intersect and apply to the fields of health.

The inaugural lab is working on a collaborative research project titled "How Are the Arts and Humanities Used in Medical Education at UF College of Medicine?"

Learn more about this project and the students involved below, and stay tuned for more updates!

Principal Investigator: Dr. Sara Agnelli

Lab Coordinator: Selin Kavak

• Project Premise

  Over the past 30 years, medical education has increasingly embraced the arts and humanities as a teaching modality, from using visual art to teach observation skills to use literature to promote perspective-taking.  A diverse scholarly community has formed around this effort, and a national initiative is underway in the United States to support consistent, effective uptake of arts- and humanities-based approaches along the continuum of medical education. The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) is leading one such effort to put forth an arts and humanities foundation for the education of future physicians and to promote the integration of these disciplines throughout the medical education continuum. To inform this effort, this collaborative project seeks to describe how the arts and humanities are integrated within the medical curriculum at UF College of Medicine.

  The integration of the arts and humanities into medicine and medical education may be essential to educating a physician workforce that can effectively contribute to optimal health care outcomes for patients and communities. The AAMC believes the arts and the humanities can play a unique and unrealized role in preparing and equipping physicians for 21st-century challenges. Our overarching goal is to understand what opportunities and obstacles remain to support the integration of these disciplines along the medical education continuum.

• Project Description

  The aim of the project is to describe how the arts and humanities are used in the medical curriculum at the UF College of Medicine. Part of the project consists in understanding what opportunities medical students are offered in terms of art forms, including literature, poetry, theater, performing arts, and visual arts, as well as various pedagogical strategies that use these forms.

   

  The idea is (1) to learn what “Health Humanities” is and (2) how/if it is integrated in the medical curriculum at UF (delivery). The immediate goal of this working group will be to describe - through a survey/questionnaire - if students who are already enrolled in medical schools or in any other programs of public health/health professions at UF, have been exposed to “Health Humanities” and how.

   

  Our first impression is that UF medical students will be interested in learning more about Health Humanities, BUT they lack the time to do it. What if we start educating students during their pre-med/pre health track? In this regard, we believe that such a study will help advocate for a Health Humanities minor at UF.

• Research Groups

  Circular Health Humanities @ Leo Lab
  Group 1	Group 2	Group 3
  Qualitative Research: Report – Summary of the approaches and brief descriptions of Art Form and Humanities Subjects across the UF medical curriculum	Qualitative Research: Focus Group   (10 med students + 10 med doctors)	Quantitative research: Survey   (150/200 UF med students)