Medicine and the arts in the undergraduate medical curriculum at the University of Oslo Faculty of Medicine, Oslo, Norway

The authors describe a course titled Medicine and the Arts, established in 1996, that is part of the first semester of the undergraduate medical curriculum at the University of Oslo Faculty of Medicine. The course comprises four two-hour seminars on literature, visual arts, architecture, and music. The core objectives of the course are to demonstrate how art can be a source of personal and professional development, and also how art represents a source of insight into patients' experiences and the social, cultural, and historical context of medical practice. The course emphasizes that art is ambiguous and many layered and that its interpretation requires sensitivity, engagement, imagination, and reflection. Fostering these skills is a major aim of the course because these skills are also essential for clinical competence and professional development. The course's seminars are integrated into the curriculum but are not compulsory. Although the topics covered by the course have not been explicitly addressed in the formal examination of students, there has been some discussion about doing so, which would be a signal that those topics are as important as others in the curriculum.