HIV/AIDS in the visual arts: applying discipline-based art education (DBAE) to medical humanities

CONTEXT AND RATIONALE: Health professions educators have been systematically attempting to insert the humanities into health professions curricula for over 4 decades, with various degrees of success. Among the several medical humanities, the visual arts seem particularly adequate for the teaching/learning of crucial aspects of medicine. Educational efforts in the arts require, however, a sound pedagogical philosophy of art education. Health professions educators need therefore to be aware of educational frameworks in the arts. Discipline-based art education (DBAE) is a recognised contemporary educational framework for the teaching/learning of the arts, which may be adapted to medical humanities. OBJECTIVE: It is the ultimate objective of this essay to share the experience of applying this educational framework to a course in a medical curriculum. METHODS: The author describes a course on the representations of HIV/AIDS in the visual arts, with explicit reference to its objectives, content, instructional features and student assessment in the light of DBAE, whose principles and characteristics are described in detail. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Discipline-based art education may be applied to medical humanities courses in a medical curriculum. This essay throws light on how this structure may be particularly useful for designing other pedagogically sound art courses in health professions curricula.