Training the clinical eye and mind: using the arts to develop medical students' observational and pattern recognition skills

Introduction  Observation, including identification of key pieces of data, pattern recognition, and interpretation of significance and meaning, is a key element in medical decision making. Clinical observation is taught primarily through preceptor modelling during the all‐important clinical years. No single method exists for communicating these skills, and medical educators have periodically experimented with using arts‐based training to hone observational acuity. The purpose of this qualitative study was to better understand the similarities and differences between arts‐based and clinical teaching approaches to convey observation and pattern recognition skills.