Using Body Painting and Other Art-Based Approaches for the Teaching of Anatomy and for Public Engagement

Abstract

Anatomy is no longer a subject taught within the dissecting room. Recent decades have seen a change in the teaching methods utilized within human anatomy education. Anatomists not only have to deal with the challenges of fewer cadavers, time constraints and limited numbers of trained staff but also greater public interest and stricter legislation. These challenges have forced anatomists to formulate new approaches to teaching. The traditional anatomists’ toolkit of containing scalpels and clamps is now more likely to also contain items from outside of the medical context, including virtual dissection tables, body paints, ultraviolet lights, pipe cleaners and modelling clay. All of these tools have added new dimensions to the classroom but one, body painting, stands out as the most popular approach with the health students and lay audiences alike. Body painting involves painting anatomical structures, such as muscles of facial expression, dermatomes or abdominal viscera, on the surface of the skin. It is cost-effective and can easily be applied to large classes. Students are expected to paint, following detailed guidelines, and are (optionally) used as the canvas to be painted themselves. This process of painting internal structures onto the body promotes knowledge retention, creates an exciting teaching environment and improves students’ engagement in their anatomical studies.