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ABOUT US

Edith J. Langner, M.D., practiced internal medicine and endocrinology in Manhattan for 35 years. Affiliated with Roosevelt Hospital , and then New York Hospital , she worked with Cornell Medical School 's Art of Observation Program at the Frick Collection from 1996 to 2003. In this program, medical students came to the Frick Collection to hone their observational skills through the use of classical portraits and photographs. In 2005 she joined Dr. Rita Charon in the Program in Narrative Medicine to begin the Arts in Medicine Project. The Project includes the first year art-based seminars, a fourth year selective in art in medicine, and Wilma's Studio, bringing specially trained artists into the neurology and oncology clinics to work with children in the waiting rooms of the Presbyterian Hospital.

The Program in Narrative Medicine at Columbia University 's College of Physicians and Surgeons offers unique intensive seminars to first-year students using art to broaden their clinical experiences and deepen their insight into the practice of medicine. Begun in 2005, the Arts in Medicine Project expanded the Narrative Medicine Seminars into the use of the visual arts, adding three museum-based courses and a life drawing class. Each of the museum classes (situated at the Museum of Modern Art , the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Frick Collection) is taught by a museum educator with a focus on our educational goals.

Our approach begins with the exploration of observational skills. We believe that there is an extraordinary language within the visual world that is often perceived unconsciously; when properly understood, this language can potentially offer new depths of information about and access to the clinical experience. Our goal is not to teach art history, but rather to use art to further our goals; we explore issues such as empathy, the patient encounter, and the encounter with the self. How does medical thinking resemble and differ from thinking in the “art” world? What kind of changes do we undergo in medical school, in terms of how we see the world?

Columbia students have also embraced the arts on their own during their medical school experience. Student-generated visual art offerings include a life drawing group as well as an art group which offers museum tours and theater experiences.