Historically, oil portrait paintings of white men have made up nearly all of the artwork in the Sterling Hall of Medicine, a prominent building within the Yale School of Medicine (YSM) campus. Recently, updates were made to the building’s portraiture to feature more diversity in gender and background.
In a new qualitative study, researchers from the YSM, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Yale New Haven Hospital conducted interviews with second- to fourth-year medical students at Yale, asking for their reflections on both the original and updated artwork.
Four common themes emerged from the collection of student interviews. Interviewees described artwork as reflective of institutional values and responded positively to the increase in diverse representation. Students also expressed concerns over performativity and noted how students took initiative to create communities of belonging for themselves.
The team concluded that institutional portraiture has a considerable impact on students' experiences of medical school by contributing to racialized and gendered aspects of the environment. This finding suggests that re-evaluating visual culture in educational institutions may be worthwhile. Read more about the study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
Konkwo C, Fitzsousa E, Chan SM, Muhammad M, Anderson N, Reisman A. Revisiting the Exhibits-Medical Student Reflections on Changes to the Institutional Portraiture at a US Medical School. J Gen Intern Med. 2022 Sep 21. doi: 10.1007/s11606-022-07803-y. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36131052.