The Harvard Macy Institute Art Museum-based Health Professions Education Fellowship: Transformational faculty development through the arts

Museum-based education for health professionals can lead to a variety of important learning outcomes within the domain of skills development, personal insight, perspective-taking and social advocacy. The Harvard Macy Institute's Art Museum-based Health Professions Education Fellowship was designed to develop faculty expertise in art museum-based practices, encourage scholarship, and cultivate a cohesive and supportive community of educators. The Fellowship was piloted from January to May 2019 with twelve interprofessional Fellows. Two in-person experiential sessions were held at Boston-area museums with intervening virtual learning. Fellows were introduced to a variety of approaches used in art museum-based education and developed a project for implementation at their home institution. A qualitative formative evaluation assessed immediate and 6-month post-Fellowship outcomes. Outcomes are reported in four categories: (1) Fellows' personal and professional development; (2) Institutional projects and curriculum development; (3) Community of practice and scholarly advancement of the field; and (4) Development of Fellowship model. A follow-up survey was performed four years after the conclusion of the pilot year, documenting Fellows' significant accomplishments in museum-based education, reflections on the Fellowship and thoughts on the future of the field.