Sexual Boundaries in Dental Education and Practice

The development of positive student-professor and the dental practitioner-patient relationship is extremely important because it affects their behavior and the outcomes of their communication. Building and supporting it from both sides, learners and teachers, as well as dentists and clients, develop particular expectations targeted at one another.

Teacher-student relationship has enormous influence on the educational and learning processes. Depending on its characteristic, educators and learners tend to have particular expectations considering each other. For example, those students who have good relations with their teacher in general, believe that one can assist them when necessary and will surely assess their performance objectively, being ready to give a second chance if it is needed. Students consider that their learning goals are likely to be better and faster satisfied when a teacher they like is involved. Similarly, professionals tend to expect more from the learners they have food relationship. They often believe that these students are ready to do their best regularly so that a lot of educational issues can be not only minimalized but also avoided. Being attached to a teacher, students expect them to recognize their strengths and weaknesses and to use this knowledge, assisting them in education (Ansary et al., 2011). As a result, they believe that positive relationship with the educator will allow them to achieve learning goals and make this whole process more effective. Similar expectations can be observed from the opposite side. Teachers think that attachment to their learners can be a source of good relations. They tend to believe that students will be more loyal and hardworking when having a good relationship outside the class. Feeling support and readiness to help, students tend to become more willing to practice independently, which can make them better professionals than their fellows.

In general, dental care is discussed along with the feelings of fear and anxiety. Thus, “interpersonal and communication skills, the use of psychosocial and behavioral principles, and effective communication with individuals from various patient populations” became critical for the establishment of the good relationship and minimalizing of adverse feelings and perceptions (Orsini & Jerez, 2014). If a professional follow such recommendations, one should expect high levels of satisfaction. As a result, patients will be loyal. They will follow all instructions and adhere to medicines and recommendations. The level of anxiety will decrease so that it will be easier for the professionals to communicate with the patient and make one follow instructions. However, it is significant to ensure that dentist-patient relationship is mainly therapeutic and does not exceed professional relations even when being somehow sympathetic. Only those practitioners who pay much attention to verbal and nonverbal communication so that they can understand what their patients experience and feel at a particular moment have an opportunity to expect their clients to reveal friendliness and assertiveness. If a dental practitioner does not emphasize the need to appeal to one’s patients and thinks that there is no necessity to make sure that they feel comfortable and are satisfied build positive relations, loyalty, and good relations are not likely to be established.

Thus, students and dental practitioners can expect loyalty and assistance in the framework of the student-professor and the dental practitioner-patient relationship if they establish them properly. Students tend to believe that their educators will recognize their strong and weak sides and use them to reach improvement. Dental practitioners consider that their patients need to be understood and sympathized so that they can cope with fear and anxiety.

References

Ansary, J., Ara, I., Talukder, H., Alam, A., Amin, S., Rahman, S. (2011). Views of students regarding effective clinical teaching and learning in dental education. Bangladesh Journal of Medical Education, 2(1), 1-5.

Orsini, C., & Jerez, O. (2014). Establishing a good dentist-patient relationship: Skills defined from the dental faculty perspective. Journal of Dental Education, 78(10), 1405-1415.