Page 11 - Stories_of_Older_Adults

I N T R O D U C T I O N

“ As part of the main study of dental education, we wanted to

When we focus on others, our
find out which teaching methods could help develop more
world expands.
focused on empathy development. Empathy, which
-Daniel Goleman humanistic and holistic dentists. For our sub-project, we
generally refers to the ability to put ourselves in another
person’s shoes, is an essential part of connecting with
other people. This is important in all jobs, but especially in
caring professions. While many consider empathy a trait or
a feeling, others have said that true empathy is shown on
how we communicate with others. In this sense, empathy
can be seen as an action.

To this end, communication skills are essential. After all,
what is the point of ‘feeling’ empathy if we are unable to
convey it? Therefore, in thinking about how to develop
students’ empathy, we thought a communication-focused
teaching method might be the answer. We decided to
explore life-story documentation as a teaching tool for
developing the empathy and communication skills of dental
Pre-clinical dental student of students.
Universiti Malaya

We hoped that the dental students would gain from hearing
about the experiences of another person and then retelling
them in a biography or narrative. We decided that an inter-
generational task involving older adults would be
appropriate, as many young people do not interact often
with older persons outside their families. However, for
dental students, many of their future patients would be
older adults. We set out to explore whether a life-story
documentation task could improve the students’ empathy
levels and perspectives towards older adults, as well as their
communication skills. These qualities and skills could help
prepare the students to serve their future patients better.

A dental student of Universiti
Malaya with her patient

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