Here’s a typical day. It’s 9am: half my students are missing. I only have six, but that’s 50%. I have six patients booked for dental treatment at 9am and half the workforce is missing. This isn’t the NHS, this is university, and it’s becoming a pattern.
I’m a PhD student in a clinical training pathway. I get the buzz of teaching undergraduates and the intrigue of researching. Normally, I feel like I get the best of both worlds. But sometimes I find it tough to teach the invisible students – and when they arrive the challenges continue.
9:15am, one girl arrives. She’s wearing platform, open-toed shoes accompanied by leopard print leggings. Hardily the attire of a surgeon. But resisting the urge to speak my mind, I send her to theatre for more neutral clothing.
I then wander down the aisle, listening to each student interact with their patients. I overhear one student: “I’ll just look up that drug, one sec”. He whips out his mobile phone for Google.
Another comes to present a case to me, after he arrived late because he snoozed his alarm too many times. He refers to the patient by the shortened version of her name. “Did you ask the lady if that’s what she wanted us to call her?” I ask. “Well no, but that’s what her name is, so, like it’s sound.”
“Sound?” I thought. That’s the word I normally use to define an intact, pathology-free, healthy tooth when examining a patient.
When clinic has finished, the blood, sweat and tears have all been wiped clean, it’s time to discuss feedback with my students. Specifically, professionalism and their attitudes today. This is where we reach an impasse. My students believe wholeheartedly that they behaved professionally. They turned up with loupes, they used technology to get the most up-to-date drug information and, most importantly for them, their patients were happy with the treatment completed.
But the problem is that there is evidence to suggest that unprofessional behaviour – like not dressing appropriately – is associated with adverse medical outcomes. Equally, patient perceptions examined at the University of Minnesota found they associated professional attire and behaviour with professional competence.
Am I wrong, to believe Mrs X should have been asked how she wished to be addressed? According to recent research, it is likely she would have preferred her full name, not the abbreviation.
And is it okay that my student whipped out a mobile phone? When I was an undergraduate it was banned from all clinics. Is it now acceptable to use these freely in front of patients?
My students and I seem to have very different beliefs about what defines a professional. The literature suggests that our patients have altogether different beliefs as well. Professionalism is an aspect of dentistry that is open to a degree of interpretation by everyone.
Today’s students may seem to view the world differently. But according to research, they understand professionalism predominantly on the basis of their observations of role models in their environment. Some evidence even suggests that students gain most of their knowledge of professionalism from these role models, which are said to have the greatest impact on their conceptions of professionalism.
Perhaps I should stop worrying about how students are dressed or if they’re using their mobiles, and instead pour my energies into providing them with the best role model they can learn from.
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