Essays & Journal Articles
My academic publications focus on relationships between the arts and humanities and medicine, from promoting observation and empathy to engaging critically with institutional histories and structures.
A Novel For-Credit DEI Humanities Co-Curriculum
Article Title
A Novel For-Credit DEI Humanities Co-Curriculum
Publication Date
February 2024
Role
Co-Author
Authors
Megan Voeller, Charles A. Pohl
Journal Title
Medical Education
DOI
10.1111/medu.15358
Medical educators have highlighted the role that the arts and humanities can play in advancing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) by supporting critical reflection on inequities and teaching advocacy.
In response to feedback from undergraduate medical students, we adapted an existing co-curricular humanities program to include an optional focus in anti-racism in health (ARIH). Though racism as a social determinant of health is increasingly addressed in medical curricula, such inclusion often consists of a small number of didactic sessions, limiting students' ability to reflect and evolve. Using the structure of our humanities program, we developed a process for students to participate further in DEI events while building community with a cohort of peers and achieving recognition.
Developing a Health Humanities Co-Curricular Program
Article Title
Developing a Health Humanities Co-Curricular Program
Publication Date
November 2020
Role
Author
Author
Megan Voeller
Journal Title
Medical Education
DOI
10.1111/medu.14329
This short-form report details the process of developing the Asano Humanities & Health Certificate program, a co-curricular program designed to engage health professions graduate students in arts and humanities programming as a complement to their formal academic curricula.
Since its inception during 2017-2018, more than 600 students at Thomas Jefferson University have completed the co-curricular program from disciplines including medicine, nursing, public health, pharmacy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, humanities, and textile design.
Featured in the biannual “Really Good Stuff” issue of Medical Education, my report discusses the successes, challenges and lessons learned through the first three years of program creation and improvement (2017-2020), including major themes from student feedback and learning outcomes.
Medical Students’ Exposure to the Humanities Correlates with Positive Personal Qualities and Reduced Burnout: A Multi-Institutional U.S. Survey
Article Title
Medical Students’ Exposure to the Humanities Correlates with Positive Personal Qualities and Reduced Burnout: A Multi-Institutional U.S. Survey
Publication Date
January 2018
Role
Co-Author, Co-Investigator
Authors
Salvatore Mangione, Chayan Chakraborti, Giuseppe Staltari, Rebecca Harrison, Allan R. Tunkel, Kevin T. Liou, Elizabeth Cerceo, Megan Voeller, Wendy L. Bedwell, Keaton Fletcher, And Marc J. Kahn
Journal Title
Journal Of General Internal Medicine
DOI
10.1007/S11606-017-4275-8
Literature, music, theater, and visual arts play an uncertain and limited role in medical education. One of the arguments often advanced in favor of teaching the humanities refers to their capacity to foster traits that not only improve practice but might also reduce physician burnout—an increasing scourge in today’s medicine. Yet, research remains limited.
To test the hypothesis that medical students with higher exposure to the humanities would report higher levels of positive physician qualities (e.g., wisdom, empathy, self-efficacy, emotional appraisal, spatial skills), while reporting lower levels of negative qualities that are detrimental to physician well-being (e.g., intolerance of ambiguity, physical fatigue, emotional exhaustion, and cognitive weariness).
This study confirms the association between exposure to the humanities and both a higher level of students’ positive qualities and a lower level of adverse traits. These findings may carry implications for medical school recruitment and curriculum design.
The Art of Critical Thinking in Nursing: A Novel Multi-Modal Humanities Curriculum
Article Title
The Art of Critical Thinking in Nursing: A Novel Multi-Modal Humanities Curriculum
Publication Date
January 2018
Role
Co-Author, Co-Investigator
Authors
Keaton A. Fletcher, Wendy L. Bedwell, Megan Voeller, Dolores Coe, Merry Lynn Morris, Bruce Marsh, Cheryl Zambroski
Journal Title
Medical Science Educator
DOI
10.1007/S40670-018-0538-1
This paper describes a multi-modal, humanities-based set of workshops designed to improve nursing students’ critical thinking skills, perspective taking, and appreciation of the humanities.
We expand the Visual Thinking Strategies curriculum to a multi-modal, arts-based program. Twenty-two nursing students participated in four, three-hour arts-based workshops. Program reactions were qualitatively analyzed. Following completion of the course, participants reported an appreciation for the multi-modal arts-based program and recognized ways in which it might influence their performance on the job.
The curriculum was perceived as beneficial by nursing students, with themes of metacognition and awareness/appreciation of others being particularly salient.
Academics, Artists, and Museums: 21st-Century Partnerships
Chapter Title
The Art of Attending: Arts-Based Observation Training for Health Professions Students at the University of South Florida
Publication Date
2018
Role
Author
Editors
Irina Costache and Clare Kunny
Book Title
Academics, Artists, and Museums: 21st-Century Partnerships
ISBN
9781138300781
Since the early 2000s, art museums have emerged as a venue for cultivating the visual observation and communication skills of health professionals. “The Art of Attending” describes one such program at the University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum.
The chapter details how the museum’s innovative program responded to and diverged from model programs by combining discussions of artworks using Visual Thinking Strategies, an established museum education tool, with methods from studio art, dance and music. In combination with debriefing with health professions faculty, these activities were practiced to foster close observation, awareness of cognitive bias, comfort with ambiguity, openness to different perspectives and self-awareness in students.
Book description:
Collaboration and interdisciplinary practice in the museum are on the rise. Academics, Artists, and Museums examines twenty-first century partnerships between the museum and higher education sectors, with a focus on art museums and exhibits. The edited volume offers detailed analysis of how innovative curatorial relationships between museums and academia have sought to engage new, younger, audiences through the collaborative transformation of museums and exhibitions.
Thematic topics explored include the forming and nature of interdisciplinary partnerships, the integration of museum learning into higher education, audience engagement, and digital technology. With a particular emphasis on practice in the U.S., the range of projects discussed includes those at both widely recognized and lesser-known institutions, from The Met to the Tohono O’odham Nation Cultural Center in the U.S., to Ewha University Museum in South Korea, and Palazzo Strozzi in Italy. The role of art and the work of the artist are firmly positioned at the core of many of the relationships explored.
Academics, Artists, and Museums advocates for the museum as an experimental ‘laboratory’ where academia, art and the museum profession can combine to engage new audiences. It is a useful resource for museum professionals, artists, scholars, and students interested in collaboration and innovative practice.
Thinking with Art, or What Happens When a Critic Sees You Lose Your Hair
Article Title
Thinking with Art, or What Happens When a Critic Sees You Lose Your Hair
Publication Date
Summer 2014
Role
Co-Author
Authors
Megan Hildebrandt and Megan Voeller
Journal Title
Departures In Critical Qualitative Research
DOI
10.1525/dcqr.2014.3.2.117
This essay explores a collaboration between a visual artist (Hildebrandt) and her museum-educator–art-critic colleague (Voeller) that led to a series of public events and an exhibition of drawings made by the artist in response to her experience with Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
The artist’s narrative vignettes about her cancer experience and images of her drawings are interwoven with the educator–critic’s account of how the collaboration motivated her to reflect critically on the professional museum practices that frame how viewers should relate to art through formal, historical, and conceptual appreciation. Drawing inspiration from Arthur W. Frank’s call to ‘‘think with’’ illness narratives as a practice of empathic and self-reflexive engagement, the essay asks how museum education practices might facilitate empathic relationships and self-and-other awareness through and around art. A pair of public conversations among the artist, oncologists, and other participants is presented as a case study.
Finally, the essay asks how the specific situation described relates to larger questions about the significance of empathy to the clinical practice of healthcare, and to conversations within the field of contemporary art about the relational dimensions of art.