Art Course Linked to Short-Term Empathy Gain

A two-week art-based educational course was associated with a sustained increase in medical students’ perspective-taking, a core component of empathy, according to a longitudinal study conducted at a single medical school in Japan. Among 117 undergraduate medical students, perspective-taking scores rose significantly immediately after a course combining drawing exercises with Visual Thinking Strategies, and the improvement remained detectable two weeks later. Other empathy subscales either showed no significant changes or improved only immediately after the intervention. The findings are reported in BMC Medical Education and provide evidence of short-term measured change in one dimension of empathy among medical students, rather than proof of durable clinical or behavioral effects.

The study was conducted over two years, from 2021 to 2023, at one Japanese medical school. Participants completed the two-week course, which incorporated drawing exercises and Visual Thinking Strategies, or VTS. Researchers assessed students at three time points: before the intervention, immediately afterward and two weeks later. This repeated-measures design allowed the investigators to examine whether any observed change appeared during the course and whether it remained measurable at short-term follow-up. Empathy changes across the three assessments were evaluated with repeated-measures analysis of variance and Holm-adjusted multiple comparisons, a procedure used to account for multiple statistical tests.

Empathy was assessed through a questionnaire that included the Multidimensional Empathy Scale, or MES, together with the aesthetic-value subscale of the Value-Intention Scale. The latter is described in the study as a validated Japanese instrument based on Spranger’s six values. Aesthetic value was defined in the study as an orientation toward beauty, harmony, form and expressive experience. The central result was specific rather than universal: the perspective-taking subscale increased significantly after the art-based course, and that change was maintained at the two-week follow-up. Some other empathy subscales showed significant improvements immediately after the intervention, but those gains were not maintained at follow-up, while still others did not change significantly. The study therefore does not show that every measured component of empathy improved consistently.

The researchers also examined whether changes in empathy were associated with changes in aesthetic value by calculating Pearson correlation coefficients. Changes in perspective-taking were positively correlated with changes in aesthetic value, meaning that students whose perspective-taking scores increased more also tended to report larger increases in aesthetic value. This relationship is an association measured within the study, not evidence that changing aesthetic value caused empathy to improve. It nevertheless identifies a possible link between the development of aesthetic value and one dimension of empathic development, a relationship that the authors say has rarely been examined in medical education. The study’s conclusion was that art-based programming may have value in medical education and that activities intentionally designed to foster aesthetic value could potentially support its effectiveness; this remains a hypothesis for further evaluation rather than a demonstrated mechanism.

The results come with clear scope and limitations. This was a single-school study of 117 undergraduate medical students, and its reported measurements followed the intervention for only two weeks. The findings therefore address short-term questionnaire-based changes at one institution and do not establish whether perspective-taking gains persist beyond that follow-up period. The supplied study abstract does not provide the magnitude of the changes or identify a randomized comparison, and the results do not show that the course altered clinical behavior or patient outcomes. Nevertheless, the sustained improvement in perspective-taking offers a measured result with potential relevance to medical education: a compact course combining drawing with VTS was followed by a statistically significant and maintained change in at least one core empathy component. Whether the approach produces broader, longer-lasting empathic gains, and whether strengthening aesthetic value contributes to those gains, will require further study.

Subject of Research: Short-term effects of art-based education on empathy and aesthetic value in Japanese medical students

Article Title: A longitudinal study of the short-term effects of art-based educational course on empathy and aesthetic value in medical students

Article References: Kubo, T., Obika, M., Kato, M., & Matsumoto, H. (2026). A longitudinal study of the short-term effects of art-based educational course on empathy and aesthetic value in medical students. BMC Medical Education. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-026-10409-1

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12909-026-10409-1

Keywords: medical education, art-based learning, empathy, perspective-taking, aesthetic value, visual thinking strategies, medical students, longitudinal study, questionnaire assessment, Japan, longitudinal, short-term