Teaching Culturally Sensitive Care to Dental Students: A Multidisciplinary Approach

Dental schools must prepare future dentists to deliver culturally sensitive care to diverse patient populations, but there is little agreement on how best to teach these skills to students. This article examines this question by exploring the historical and theoretical foundations of this area of education in dentistry, analyzes what is needed for students to learn to provide culturally sensitive care in a dental setting, and identifies the discipline-specific skills students must master to develop this competence. The problems associated with single-discipline, lecture-based approaches to teaching culturally sensitive care are outlined, and the advantages of an interdisciplinary, patient-centered, skills-based approach to teaching culturally sensitive care are described. The authors advocate for an approach to teaching culturally sensitive care that builds upon learning in the behavioral sciences, ethics, and public health. Component skills and perspectives offered by each of these curriculum areas are identified, and their contributions to the teaching of culturally sensitive care are described. Finally, the need to consider the timing of this instruction in the dental curriculum is examined, along with instructional advantages associated with an approach that is shared by faculty across the curriculum

Craniofacial Morphology and Occlusal Variation in Monozygous and Dizygous Twins

A study of 60 pairs of twins, 30 monozygous and 30 dizygous, finding a strong genetic component overlaid by functional adaptation most prominent in the dental area

The Economic Costs and Benefits of Dental Education: An Empirical Analysis

The rising costs associated with obtaining a dental education have caused some to question the financial benefit of pursuing a dental degree. There is a concern that recent graduates may have difficulty finding professional opportunities that provide the income necessary to service their accumulated educational debt. The aim of this study was to evaluate the trends in educational costs to aid in making an accurate appraisal of the financial benefit of a dental education. Adjusted into constant dollar terms, data from a variety of sources were collected for economic variables such as tuition, fees, student indebtedness, and dentists’ earnings. These variables were then analyzed to determine the true costs and benefits of obtaining a dental education. The results showed that, over the course of the last decade, educational costs increased faster than the real net income of practicing dentists, which led to a decline in the return on investment in dental education. However, regardless of an applicant’s choice of public or private dental school, there continues to be a positive economic return on students’ commitment of both financial resources and time to receive a dental education

Living with multiple myeloma: A focus group study of unmet needs and preferences for survivorship care

Purpose: To describe the unmet informational, psychological, emotional, social, practical, and physical needs and preferences for posttreatment survivorship care of individuals living with multiple myeloma to inform the development of relevant, personcentered, survivorship services. Methods: An exploratory, descriptive study using 2 focus groups with 14 participants, 6 to 49 months postdiagnosis. Results: Thematic analysis revealed 7 key themes: information needs, experience with health-care professionals, coping with side effects, communicating with family and friends, dealing with emotions, support needs, and living with the chronicity of myeloma. Participants described key characteristics of survivorship care relevant to their needs and indicated they would like a more whole of person approach to follow-up when the main treatment phases had completed. Conclusion: Participants in this study described unmet needs across a breadth of domains that varied over time. The development of flexible, person-centered approaches to comprehensive survivorship care is needed to address the considerable quality-of-life issues experienced by people living with multiple myeloma. Nurse-led care may offer 1 viable model to deliver enhanced patient experience—providing the vital “link” that people described as missing from their survivorship care

Using geographic methods to inform cancer screening interventions for South Asians in Ontario, Canada

BACKGROUND: Literature suggests that South Asians in Ontario, Canada are under-screened for breast, cervical and colorectal cancer. Accordingly, we are involved in a community-engaged multi-phase study aimed at increasing cancer screening for this vulnerable group. In the work described in this manuscript, we aimed to use visual displays of spatial analyses to identify the most appropriate small geographic areas in which to pilot targeted cancer screening interventions for Ontario’s South Asian community. METHODS: We used Geographic Information Systems (GIS), including Local Indicators of Spatial Association (LISA) using GeoDa software, and population-level administrative data to create multi-layered maps of: i) rates of appropriate cancer screening, ii) the percentage of residents of South Asian ethnicity, and iii) the locations of primary care practices and community health centres by census tract in the Peel Region of Ontario (population: 1.2 million). The maps were shared with partner health service and community service organizations at an intervention development workgroup meeting to examine face validity. RESULTS: The lowest rates of appropriate cancer screening for census tracts across the region were 51.1% for cervical cancer, 48.5% for breast cancer, and 42.5% for colorectal cancer. We found marked variation both in screening rates and in the proportion of South Asians residents by census tract but lower screening rates in the region were consistently associated with larger South Asian populations. The LISA analysis identified a high-risk area consisting of multiple neighbouring census tracts with relatively low screening rates for all three cancer types and with a relatively large South Asian population. Partner organizations recognized and validated the geographic location highlighted by the LISA analysis. Many primary care practices are located in this high-risk area, with one community health centre located very nearby. CONCLUSIONS: In this populous region of Ontario, South Asians are more likely to reside in areas with lower rates of appropriate breast, cervical and colorectal cancer screening. We have identified a high-risk area appropriate for both patient- and provider-focused interventions. Geographic Information Systems, in particular LISA analyses, can be invaluable when working with health service and community organizations to define areas with the greatest need for interventions to reduce health inequities

Resistive flow in a weakly interacting Bose-Einstein condensate

We report the direct observation of resistive flow through a weak link in a weakly interacting atomic Bose-Einstein condensate. Two weak links separate our ring-shaped superfluid atomtronic circuit into two distinct regions, a source and a drain. Motion of these weak links allows for creation of controlled flow between the source and the drain. At a critical value of the weak link velocity, we observe a transition from superfluid flow to superfluid plus resistive flow. Working in the hydrodynamic limit, we observe a conductivity that is 4 orders of magnitude larger than previously reported conductivities for a Bose-Einstein condensate with a tunnel junction. Good agreement with zero-temperature Gross-Pitaevskii simulations and a phenomenological model based on phase slips indicate that the creation of excitations plays an important role in the resulting conductivity. Our measurements of resistive flow elucidate the microscopic origin of the dissipation and pave the way for more complex atomtronic devices.Comment: Version published in PR