General Education Requirements
Course Description
This is an interactive, multidisciplinary undergraduate seminar that explores the various ways in which studying art increases critical observational skills which are so vital for aspiring health care providers. You will be introduced to visual thinking strategies through classroom, art creation, and museum-based activities, and will apply these skills to both works of art and medical cases. We will put significant focus on engaging in group discussions where you will collaboratively use visual evidence to generate and defend a hypothesis. Drawing and sketching from life will play a critical role in honing your observational skills through weekly assignments, workshops, and a final project.
No previous art experience is necessary.
Meet the Instructor: Asheen Rama, MD, Samuel Rodriguez, MD, & Lauren Toomer
Asheen Rama, MD
Dr. Asheen Rama is a pediatric anesthesiologist at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. He has a passion for medical humanities education and has a long standing interest for art and medicine having majored in fine arts with a concentration in oil painting at the University of Pennsylvania. He has taught art and medicine courses at Stanford to medical students and is the medical student clerkship director for pediatric anesthesiology. Also, he is passionate about medical simulations and continues to use his background in the arts to create immersive simulation scenarios using virtual and augmented reality.
Samuel Rodriguez, MD
"I am a practicing pediatric anesthesiologist at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford. In addition to clinical work, I am an award-winning oil painter and medical illustrator. I've taught classes on art and medicine at Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School prior to moving to Stanford where I now teach similar courses in the medical school and residency programs."
Lauren Toomer
Lauren A. Toomer, lecturer in art practice, is a figurative artist, creating work about the human body and the loopholes in perception. She received her MFA in Art Practice from Stanford University and BA in Art Practice from UC Berkeley (summa cum laude). Her graduate studies included coursework in anatomy and education. Toomer continues to work with the Division of Clinical Anatomy and Stanford Hospital affiliates.
Toomer’s research and uninhibited work led her to receive a fellowship from the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive and the Drawing of Excellence Award from UC Berkeley. She has exhibited in the directors offices at SFMOMA, the Worth Ryder, ASC Projects, and the Equal Justice Society exhibition at the University of San Francisco. She has been the guest artist speaker at SFMOMA’s Artists Gallery, the Anderson Collection, and UC Berkeley.
