Seven students, completing their first year of medical school at the University of Pittsburgh, clustered around two objects in a small room and listened intently to an instructor's comments.

	Bill Wade, Post-Gazette photos Carnegie Museum's Louise Lippincott, left, asks medical students, including Becky Tsui, to compare Edward Hopper's 1936 painting "Cape Cod Afternoon" with a book illustration of George Braque's cubism. Click photo for larger image.

Then they were asked to share their own observations about the subject of the discussion.

The instructor was Louise Lippincott, Carnegie Museum of Art chief curator and curator of fine arts.

And the objects were paintings -- "Sailing" and "Cape Cod Afternoon" by American artist Edward Hopper -- in the museum's collection.

The students, four women and three men, were attending a new mini-elective, "Art and Medicine," offered jointly by the School of Medicine, the Carnegie and The Andy Warhol Museum.

Contrary to what might be expected, the course is not an art appreciation primer, although it incorporates elements of that. Nor does it concentrate on aesthetic representations of medical procedures or anatomy.

Its intent is to challenge and to expand the students' notions about, and acuity of, visual perception by developing a heightened sensitivity toward looking. That includes not only sharpening observation skills but also expanding awareness of how individual life experiences shape and constrain what one sees.

Stephanie Downs, left, and Laura Van Metre study Edward Hopper's 1911 painting "Sailing" in the Carnegie Museum of Arts conservation room. Click photo for larger image.

"A myriad of conscious and unconscious factors affect what we see, what details and nuances we observe, and the conclusions we draw from visual information," says Marilyn Russell, Carnegie curator of education.

She had been in conversation with the University of Pittsburgh "for years" developing the program, which is based upon similar collaborations between Yale Center for British Art and Yale University Medical School, and The Frick Collection and Weill Medical College of Cornell University.

The first class, of four, was held at The Warhol, as will be the last one tomorrow. One took place in the Carnegie galleries. The Hopper paintings were displayed in the Carnegie's conservation department, where Lippincott and Chantal Bernicky, NEA Fellow in Paintings Conservation, guided the students through a diagnosis of their comparable value based on aesthetic appeal, historic worth and physical state.

Lippincott invited students to assume a curatorial role and determine which of the two paintings they would select, personally or for a public collection, as facts about their art historical significance and condition were revealed.

	Elissa Stern, left, Laura Van Metre, Stephanie Downs and Rami Zanoun study Edward Hopper's 1911 painting "Sailing" in the Carnegie Museum of Arts conservation room as part of a class in Art and Medicine. In the background is Hopper's 1936 painting "Cape Cod Afternoon" that students Akshar Abbott and Becky Tsui are discussing. Click photo for larger image.

As with doctors, Lippincott pointed out, curators are always making decisions about "what we buy, what we show in the galleries, what we lend to research." While those decisions aren't going to kill anybody, she says, serious mistakes can be made that might cost $25 million.

Among the more obvious considerations in evaluating a work of art is its place in the artist's oeuvre and the way it formally presents itself to a viewer. But there are technical tools available that may disclose more about a piece. The students were able to see how fragile the surface of one painting was when they looked at it through a microscope. And ultraviolet light directed at "Sailing" revealed an over-painted self-portrait.

This up close and personal approach, vs. an on-campus lecture course, appeals to Akshar Abbott, a Morgantown, W.Va., native who also earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Pittsburgh and is interested in the field of global health and medicine's role in international development.

"Seeing the works themselves and interacting with them in the flesh, as it were, is an important component. That moves it from the realm of theory to actual engagement with the painting."

An undergraduate Asian art course sparked his interest in the arts, Abbott says, along with a religious studies class that explored the power of symbol. "This is my first time looking at works of art with this close scrutiny and with this formal analysis."

As to future uses of the course lessons, Abbott allows that he's at the early end of his professional development so projections might be a bit premature, but he does think "it's tremendously applicable to [understand that you need to] fully utilize what you're looking at. It can't just be a passive process. With a piece of art or the care of a patient, all factors are important."

Dr. Arthur Levine, senior vice chancellor for the University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences and dean of the School of Medicine, acknowledges the potential of the collaboration.

"We are fortunate to have a partnership such as this in which the students are learning valuable implications of visual knowledge for medical practice."