Medical residents from Boston Medical Center in front of this ancient tomb relief during a recent visit to the Harvard Art Museums. They discussed the importance of interpreting history, and understanding individual stories like the one depicted in the damaged relief. Photo by Cydney Scott.

Faculty Collaborations

School Faculty Use Visual Arts to Help BMC Residents Art to Improve Clinical Diagnoses and Increase Comfort with Ambiguity

Using humanities and the arts to educate the next generation of doctors has gained popularity, and BU is no exception.

Learn about how Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine faculty members Deepthi Gunasekaran, MD, a nephrologist and assistant professor of medicine, and Gopala Krishna Yadavalli, MD, an infectious diseases expert and clinical associate professor of medicine, collaborate with BU Art Galleries to help improve observational skills of medical residents and fellows at Boston Medical Center through VITAL (Visual Thinking & Art in Learning Medicine) Program. VITAL, which began in 2025, is a new educational initiative designed to immerse BMC residents and fellows in the language and skills of the arts that translate to the medical field. By using art as the vehicle, early-career physicians can delve into the gray areas of medicine—like observation, interpretation, empathy, and ambiguity. 

A second program, the MANET Project (Museum Art in Neurology Education Training), led by Pria Anand, MD, an assistant professor of neurology at the medical school and director of the Adult Neurology Residency program at BMC, is a collaboration between BMC and curators at the Harvard Art Museums. It was started in 2024 by Tatiana Greige, then BMC chief resident, now a neurohospitalist at MaineHealth Maine Medical Center. The collaboration is the first of its kind art-based neurology program in the country. After just one semester, the 17 residents in the initial cohort were shown to have dramatically improved their observational skills. The findings, led by Anand, Greige, and other BU colleagues, were published in Neurology Education. The program is now a regular part of neurology training, which Anand is particularly proud of, she says.

Learn more and watch the video at BU Today.