Engaging Undergraduate Dental Students with Humanities: A Bespoke Added Value Course at the University of Glasgow

Varsou, O. , Murray, M. and Binnie, V. (2023) Engaging Undergraduate Dental Students with Humanities: A Bespoke Added Value Course at the University of Glasgow. Medicine and the Arts: Exploring the Healing Interactions, Doctor as a Humanist (DASH), Barcelona, Spain, 19-21 Oct 2023.

Abstract

During COVID-19, dental students in Scotland were offered an extended year for their studies. We developed a novel added value course on humanities for first year students (n = 29), who opted to take this extra year, covering: humanistic values; poetry relating to patient experiences; music in dental patient management; influences of art and film for student development as clinicians; and public and patient perceptions of dentistry as portrayed in art, film and literature. We explored the pedagogical impact of this course using a mixed methods pre- (n=12; 41%) and post-teaching (n=4; 14%) survey. 11 students had not heard of dental humanities and open comments highlighted that this was perceived to be of no relevance. Post-teaching perceptions changed noting the importance of new topics, exploring dentistry from a difference lens, with dental humanities including ethics, professionalism and “looking at dentistry outside of the science, and thinking deeper about the subject”.

• Item Type: Conference or Workshop Item
• Keywords: Anatomy, art, dentistry, history of dentistry, literature, medical/anatomical illustrations, music, poetry.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Binnie, Dr Vivian and Varsou, Dr Ourania
• Authors: Varsou, O., Murray, M., and Binnie, V.
• College/School: College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Medicine, Dentistry & Nursing; College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Medicine, Dentistry & Nursing > Dental School