Dental/dental hygiene trainees discuss race, bias, pain, and patient education. (2023)
I had a patient yesterday actually who, she was in her 30s, and had never been to the dentist, and she just moved here from Africa. And she, even [when] explaining what I would assume were the more lay-person terminology, I had to break it down further for her. And I know there’s a cultural component of trying to communicate, and what her values were for her needs are just different. It’s hard, because I don’t want to overwhelm her with information. And every patient I think reacts differently by the amount of information you give them. Sometimes they walk in and you can already tell, we’re going [to] take you step by step, when I say that it’s like. . .But her case is a little bit easier, because we were focusing on the pain that she was in first. But it took more time explaining our diagnosis and treatment, and having her understand the procedure, because she was like, “I don’t even know what these words are.” Then just my examinations, I spent more time talking to her, showing pictures, drawing things out to help her understand that.