The Necessity of Art Integration in Medical Education from the Viewpoints of Education Experts

Medicine is not only a biological science, but also includes the art of dealing with human and spiritual dimensions. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the views of medical education professionals and students regarding the integration of art in the medical science curriculum.
In this multi-method research, 22 prominent experts in the field of education and 35 medical education students participated. The research tool was a researcher-made questionnaire with seven questions about the need to combine art in medical education, which was done simultaneously with quantitative study, qualitative study and data analysis. Quantitative study method was used descriptively-analytically and content analysis was used in the qualitative part .The face validity and content of the instrument were confirmed by professors and its reliability was confirmed by Cronbach's alpha coefficient (α = 0.832).
Basically, 100% of the experts and 80% of the medical students agreed with the integration of art in medical education. They also acknowledged that it does not officially exist in the country's universities and it is necessary to include in the medical curriculum. Also, art has many applications in medical education, including improving teaching and learning, promoting creativity and emotions, keeping content in mind, applied learning, and fostering critical and creative thinking.
The results emphasized the integration of art in the medical curriculum as well as the use of art-based teaching-learning in medical sciences. But it is better to be in such a way that does not impose more educational burden on students.