Leadership, Ethics and Professionalism

Catalog description

Dentists, as healthcare professionals have an obligation to serve the public to the best of their ability. Dentistry is both a learned profession and a healing profession and as such, presents both ethical challenges and opportunities to the practitioner. Leadership cultivates a sense of agency or self-efficacy that helps immunize against the detrimental effects of stress or a loss of confidence and encourages a willingness to turn outward to help others. Ethics offers a sure foundation for professional decision-making and an assurance that actions taken are intended for the benefit of patients—still recognizing that ethical behavior can entail ambiguities and differences of opinion. Accountability refers to a willingness to be held responsible for decisions and an ability to explain and justify them on rational grounds apart from self-interest or ulterior motives. Professionalism refers to an awareness of and a willingness to abide by the normative values and behaviors expected of all health care professionals. As we proceed through the course, distinctions will be made between the overlapping domains of legality, morality, and ethics. We will compare and contrast the codes of ethics of the American Dental Association and the American Dentists. Whatever our own personal perspectives may be on various contentious issues of the day, entering the profession requires that ethical practitioners treat patients (and each other) with the highest level of respect and perform necessary treatments with the greatest level of expertise. “Topics in Controversy” will be presented as optional reading for personal reflection. This course is open only to students in the Doctor of Dental Surgery program. Core curriculum.