Chen Pamela, Kasper Jennifer, Khoshbin Shahram
P. Chen is a resident, Boston Combined Residency Program in Pediatrics, Boston Children's Hospital and Boston Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts.
J. Kasper is assistant professor, Departments of Pediatrics and Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts.
Acad Med. 2021 Aug 1;96(8):1091-1094. doi: 10.1097/ACM.0000000000004171. Epub 2021 May 18.
In this article, the authors briefly review the history and status of institutional honor wall portraits at medical schools, and they highlight the implications of a lack of diversity in these portraits for current medical students and the academic medicine pipeline. The authors then describe how contemporary portrait artists have used art as a tool for advocacy. They detail the first author's empowering and intimate journey as a medical student as she identified, connected with, and painted a portrait gallery of some of her medical school's prominent alumnae of color. This unique effort highlighted the unsung accomplishments of these women physicians and served to combat the visual disparity in honor wall portraits on campus. The authors also outline the common barriers faced by the portrait subjects and the key validation they offered the first author, a fellow woman of color. The authors describe the historical and psychological significance of several artistic decisions made for these portraits in weighing the intersections of race, gender, and profession. They then emphasize the reciprocal nature of oil portraiture and how, through painting these women, the first author was able to better envision her community of mentors, deepen her commitment to diversity and inclusion, and strengthen her own career aspirations. These portraits will hang in the student center of Harvard Medical School and will serve as a lasting reminder to future trainees, especially women and people of color, that they belong in the halls of medicine.
在本文中，作者简要回顾了医学院校机构荣誉墙上肖像画的历史和现状，并强调了这些肖像画缺乏多样性对当前医学生和学术医学人才培养的影响。作者接着描述了当代肖像画家如何将艺术用作一种宣传工具。他们详细讲述了第一作者作为一名医学生的鼓舞人心且亲密的历程，她如何识别、联系并为医学院一些杰出的有色人种校友绘制了一幅肖像画廊。这一独特的努力突出了这些女医生的默默成就，并有助于消除校园荣誉墙上肖像画的视觉差异。作者还概述了肖像画对象所面临的常见障碍以及她们给予第一作者（一位有色人种女性）的关键认可。作者描述了为这些肖像画所做的几个艺术决定在权衡种族、性别和职业交叉点方面的历史和心理意义。然后，他们强调了油画肖像画的相互性，以及通过为这些女性作画，第一作者如何能够更好地设想她的导师群体，加深她对多样性和包容性的承诺，并强化她自己的职业抱负。这些肖像画将挂在哈佛医学院的学生中心，作为对未来受训者，尤其是女性和有色人种的永久提醒，即他们属于医学殿堂。
