KITCHENER — Dr. Graham Cummins is at the front of the room, presenting to his colleagues.

He is a doctor, and most of those listening to him are doctors, too.

But there isn't a lab coat or stethoscope in sight. There are no X-rays, no lab results, no charts or medical instruments of any kind.

Cummins is talking not about his latest clinical visit with a patient, but about a painting: about its colours, shapes, the painting's rhythm and movement, and how it makes him feel.

The group of medical residents is almost done their two years of specialized training at the Waterloo regional campus of McMaster University's Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine. As part of a course on mental health and behavioural science, students were given the option to take part in a three-week session on The Art of Seeing, held at the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery in downtown Kitchener.

Dr. John McCuaig, a 29-year-old from Cambridge, wasn't quite sure what to expect when he signed up for the classes, but says they've been fun and he's learned a lot about taking the time to really see what's going on with his patients.

"There's a whole person there, and a lot of times the most important information a person has to share with you is not something they'll be able to say. If you're not looking, you might miss something."

Students learn to observe and analyze several artworks, and even got to do some of their own.

It's a far cry from most of their training, but even when they're deeply immersed in the art, the medical stuff does creep in. When they were studying a historic piece of art, says art educator Mindy Alexander, they immediately homed in on the unusual pallor of the woman in the painting.

And this week, the group studied a pastel that featured a jagged, abstract crack that coursed across the paper, revealing a mottled patchwork of colour. Alexander thought the shape was reminiscent of a tree, seen from below with its bare branches stark against the sky, but Dr. Mercedes Rodriguez saw a wound that needed debriding.

McMaster began including an art component in its medical program in 2010 in Hamilton. This is the second time the Kitchener gallery has been involved in medical education, having offered its first session to residents in fall 2013.

Although it may seem counterintuitive to teach doctors about art, a plethora of studies have shown that taking part in art courses can significantly improve doctors' observational skills, encourage them to be more humane, understanding and sympathetic when dealing with patients, improve their ability to express themselves, and help them better understand death, disability and mental illness.

Dr. Peter McPhedran, a physician who tutors the residents, said he believes the course broadens the young doctors. "There's a lot of visual clues in medicine that your eyes are not always wide open to … I definitely see value in it. There is a lot of information to be gained by having your eyes wide open."

The classes cover the kinds of skills the gallery teaches in any of its workshops, said Nicole Neufeld, the gallery's director of public programs: "What you look for to unpack an artwork and better understand it, to get an understanding of what it might be about, using careful observation."

By presenting the young doctors with unfamiliar images, they're challenged to deepen their observational skills, she said. "We encourage them to take more time and look again, and see what else they can find."

Examining art can also reveal something about the observer, Neufeld said. "When we look at artwork, we always bring with us our own preconceived ideas, our own filters through which we look at the world," she said. "We try and reveal the lens that participants will have."

The course also aims to help doctors improve their empathy skills by helping them see that there may be more than one "right" way of seeing things. One exercise the participants do is to write about an exchange they've had with a patient, but from the patient's perspective.

McCuaig said he leaped at the chance to learn something so different from his medical training. He found the exercise had an immediate effect on the way he related to patients, causing him to be less focused on simply typing notes into the patient chart on the computer.

"It became much more of an actual experience," he said. He became more aware of how the patient might see the environment, and worked harder to make it a more comfortable, open environment. "I think with all of the new technology, there's a tendency to lose that connection."

A patient might not feel comfortable bringing up mental health problems, for instance, he said, but careful observation might make it easier for the doctor to pick up cues and start that conversation.

McPhedran was surprised to see how much the residents threw themselves into the art classes.

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"There's a fun element, there's a creative element, and this is so out of the ordinary of what they normally do. I think all of that created a unique experience," he said.

While looking at paintings may seem miles away from the hard science medical students must absorb, McCuaig said the course was very relevant.

"You could spend 24 hours a day, 365 days a year learning stuff" about the latest treatments and medical breakthroughs, he said. "In that process, it's easy to forget the very reason you're trying to learn that stuff, and that's people."