Background The arts and humanities are well acknowledged for their ability to foster creativity, empathy, communication, and reducing physician burnout, but medical education has only taken small steps towards formal integration. As cited by an AAMC 2020 report The Fundamental Role of the Arts and Humanities in Medical Education: “the arts and the humanities play a unique and not fully realized role in this educational process, and we strongly encourage increased integration of the arts and humanities into curricula.” The Medical Humanities initiative (MHI) provides more formal opportunities to engage with the medical humanities throughout medical education.

Methods The MHI incorporates humanities-based teaching at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University (WAMS) through (1) wellness focused lunch sessions that engage students and faculty/staff in art forms including movement, music, and visual art; (2) a year-long pre-clinical elective course (PCE) that offers lectures from leaders in the medical arts and humanities; (3) established arts-based curriculum from Brown’s Internal Medicine Residency Arts and Medicine Track into WAMS clinical skills curriculum; (4) a committee of both undergraduate and graduate students that provides opportunities for leadership and mentorship from physicians and scholars working in medical humanities; and (5) the integration of disparate events and groups in the Providence area into a centralized resource/hub, facilitating student access and scholarly collaboration.

Results In January 2024, the MHI held an introductory event at WAMS to highlight its mission, with one-third of WAMS students in attendance. Qualitative and quantitative feedback gathered in a post-event survey demonstrated enthusiasm for more formal exposure to the medical humanities as part of their education with 97% of students indicating interest in future lunch and learn sessions and 54.5% of students interested in taking a PCE on the subject. Upon implementation in 2024-2025, the Initiative will continue to collect metrics to characterize curriculum impact, including the Brief Resilience Scale and Subjective Happiness Scale, which were previously used by the Brown Arts & Medicine Track for Internal Medicine Residents to assess the impact of medical humanities programming on resident wellness and burnout.

Conclusion The MHI has received strong initial support from current medical students, residents, faculty, and deans. The Initiative offers a unique opportunity to strengthen the medical humanities presence at Brown, with the ultimate goal of fostering scholarship and leadership opportunities for students, while simultaneously improving student wellness and strengthening the ability of future physicians to provide empathetic care.