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Predoctoral Course Catalog

DENTFN 512

Dental Curriculum Threads

Foundations of Dental Medicine

Course Director: Ashland Doomes and Cameron Randall
Credits: 2
Quarters/Yr of Program: Autumn / 1

Course Overview

This course promotes the didactic development of clinical skills that form the basis of patient-centered communication, history-taking and physical assessment, and medical record documentation. Students learn interactively through classroom lecture sessions, small group discussions, group work, and case activities. They also develop culturally-appropriate basic skills through an e-learning program.

Learning Objectives

The student who successfully completes this course will be able to:

1. List the components of a comprehensive medical/dental/behavioral history.
2. Utilize patient-centered communication skills for eliciting and exchanging information, identifying health priorities, and making decisions about treatment.
3. Identify social and cultural contributors to individual patients’ health and health behaviors.
4. Adapt the interview to the clinical setting and to patients’ needs across the life cycle, with a focus on geriatric and adolescent patients.
5. Describe the importance and techniques of communicating effectively with patients in a culturally-sensitive manner with recognition of the impact of implicit biases.
6. Explain the need for eliciting an accurate substance-use history during a dental examination.
7. Accurately and completely document a patient’s history and exam in a standard and organized manner.
8. Develop a practice of professional reflection.
9. Utilize the principles of patient autonomy and minimizing harm to analyze selected cases of patient-dentist interactions.
10. Describe concepts related to health inequities for people from historically excluded groups.
11. Describe principles of cultural humility to health care.

UWSOD Competencies: C-01, C-02, C-03, C-04, C-05, C-06, C-09, C-10, C-11, C-12, C-13, C-14, C-15, C-16, C-17, C-24, C-26, C-29, C-30, C-31, CE-02, CE-03, CE-06, CE-07

Date last updated: 2023-10-07