Impact of dental school critical thinking demonstrations carryover to practice: Survey of 5-year graduates.

Introduction: Little literature exists on graduates' application to practice for explicit critical thinking skills learned in dental school.

Purposes: Discern the (1) degree to which graduates apply explicit critical thinking skillsets in practice; (2) degree of adaptation of critical thinking skillsets to practice; (3) frequency of use for critical thinking skillsets in practice; and (4) perceptions to improve critical thinking learning guidance in dental school.

Methods: Five critical thinking exercises/skillsets were selected that had been in place over 5 years with at least one paper: geriatrics, treatment planning, technology decision making, ethics, evidence-based dentistry; each followed concepts from an emulation model in critical thinking.

Conceptualizing patient interactions eliciting empathy, compassion, reflection, and social projection: A model with analysis.

Objectives: Conceptualizing the next patient interaction is logical, essential, and largely done intuitively with limited literature. The first objective is to elicit student thought experiences to four questions. The secondary objective is to classify responses for respective questions and to review faculty assessments.

Student empathy in standardized patient experiences: Applying concepts from a critical thinking emulation model.

Introduction: Clinician empathy can improve patient outcomes, but the literature is scant on patient-based, student-led experiences to demonstrate the projection of empathy in patient interactions.

Purpose/objectives: (1) Develop a learning guide for observable behaviors communicating emotional and cognitive empathy and (2) determine whether the learning guide can be used as a rubric for assessing empathy in a standardized patient experience.

Methods: Eleven standardized patients assessed 80 D3 students using a 4-point interval scale on 19 behavioral criteria in four domains: Initiation (four criteria); Health History and Caries Risk (four criteria); Treatment Planning (six criteria); and Communication Skills (five criteria).