UCI School of Medicine Receives the AAMC’s 2023 Art of Diagnosis Award

The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), along with the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine (SIDM) and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, announced five schools to receive the 2023 Art of Diagnosis Award, including the UCI School of Medicine.

Each year, the AAMC, SIDM and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation invite proposals from medical schools to host an event where undergraduate medical students (MS1-4) have the opportunity to present creative works related to their experiences with diagnosis, diagnostic error, or learning the diagnostic process. Several schools are selected each year to receive a $5,000 grant to host their event.

Celina Yang, MD/PhD student, and Juliet McMullin, PhD, professor in the Department of Family Medicine and director of the School of Medicine’s Medical Humanities and Arts Program (MHAP), collaborated on the application for this award.

“We are thrilled about this award because it shows student leadership and develops a space for students to creatively consider the intersections of implicit bias and diagnostic error,” said Dr. McMullin.

MHAP is designed to integrate arts and humanities-based materials into medical education and promote research in the medical humanities. The program’s goal is to show medical students how humanities and the arts can help them develop both critical thinking and empathy to better understand their patients’ illness experiences, the doctor/medical team-patient/family relationships, physician self-care and various other aspects of health care.

With this award, they will share the project with medical students during implicit bias sessions that are weaved throughout the School of Medicine’s curriculum as part of its early call for artists. They will later host the ‘Art of Diagnosis’ event on Thursday, Sept. 14, 5 to 7 p.m., which will feature pieces by medical student artists, a keynote speaker, and a space for students to create their own art of diagnosis reflections.

In addition to the School of Medicine, four other schools were selected, including Albany Medical College, San Juan Bautista School of Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine and Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.