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Teaching Culturally Sensitive Care To Dental Students: A Multidisciplinary Approach, Evelyn Donate-Bartfield, William K. Lobb, Toni M. Roucka

School of Dentistry Faculty Research and Publications

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 …