This month the IAMSE publications committee review is taken from the article titled Students’ Perception of Newly Experimented “Rangoli Art” in Anatomy Education: A Pilot Study (8 June 2023) by Anjali Singal, Priti Chaudhary, Navita Aggarwal & Apurba Patra.
Art and artwork have traditionally played a significant role in medicine and medical education. Multiple studies aimed at investigating the different benefits of incorporating arts in medical education have been published. One such study was recently published in Medical Science Educator, which explored the benefits of integrating the local art form of ‘Rangoli’ in anatomy education.
Rangoli is a traditional visual art form primarily from India, in which colorful patterns are made on the ground/ floors using powders of different colors. The authors of this article organized a ‘Rangoli-making competition’ in which participants had to make anatomy diagrams using Rangoli. A list of 10 figures, which consisted of neuroanatomy, gross anatomy, and histology figures, was made available to participants a day prior to the competition. Participants were divided into groups of ten and a diagram allocation to each group was done using a lottery system. Faculty served as judges to determine the clarity and accuracy of diagrams created using Rangoli, and three out of the ten groups were selected as winners. 81 out of 100 participants volunteered to be a part of this study and answered a questionnaire based on their experience.
Overall, there was a high level of satisfaction with different aspects of this activity among survey respondents. Notable results were as follows: 92.3% of respondents found this activity to encourage team spirit, 93.6 % of respondents found that such activities generate interest in the subject (anatomy), 98.7% of respondents felt that this method was effective in providing a stress-free learning environment, and 96.2 % respondents agreed that they would attend similar art-related learning methods in the future. Interestingly, 50% of the respondents had never made Rangoli prior to this experience, despite which this activity was well received. Data related to other important aspects of the study are further discussed in the article, which highlight the benefits of this activity. Additionally, suggested modifications from respondents can also be helpful to readers, who are looking to adopt similar activities in their curriculum or as part of their extracurricular activities at their respective medical schools.
In conclusion, innovating ways to integrate art in medical education can help strengthen medical knowledge. For example, visual arts are a great medium for depicting structures, pathologies, and disease processes, and hence can be used for reinforcing these. Integrating art in medical education can also help in attaining other competencies in a stress-free environment, such as teamwork. Additionally, with some modifications, the scope of such activities can be expanded to potentially provide a medium of expression to students. Finally, while this study focuses on an art form that is local to the region, we can try to extrapolate and explore whether integrating art from different regions and cultures will allow for cross-regional and cross-cultural talks in medical education. This may further help in fostering humanism and empathy in the field of medicine, which seems to be the need of the hour.
Aditi Kesari, MBBS, PhD
Assistant Dean, Curriculum Integration
Assistant Professor, Department of Medical Education
College of Medicine
University of Tennessee Health Science Center