Comprehensive Dentistry VIII

Catalog description

This course encompasses the clinical training aspect of the DMD program. SDM faculty will supervise DMD students as they provide comprehensive oral healthcare that encompasses all disciplines and phases of general dentistry. Students will develop a sound philosophy of comprehensive patient care applicable to the establishment of a future evidence-based general practice. 140 | School of Dental Medicine SCHOOL OF OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY (SOT) PNWU-SOT Mission and Vision Mission To prepare occupational therapists as leaders, scholars, and change agents who deliver occupation- based services that promote the health and well-being of rural and medically underserved communities throughout the Northwest and beyond. Vision To be a leader in preparing occupational therapy professionals who revolutionize the health of rural and medically underserved communities. School Philosophy, Curricular Threads, and Program Outcomes Philosophy Our philosophy emphasizes occupation as central to the human experience. Through occupation, people engage in a process of inquiry; through inquiry, they learn, grow, self-actualize, and experience community and meaning (Cutchin, 2013; Cutchin & Dickie, 2012). Occupations are shaped by personal, social, physical, historical, and other contextual factors that may emerge and change across the life course. The relationship among people, contexts, and occupations is transactional in that each shape, and is shaped, by the other (Dickie et al., 2006). Occupational therapy is the skilled and innovative use of meaningful occupations in the intervention context to promote health and wellbeing and improve the life quality for clients, who can be persons, groups, and populations (American Occupational Therapy Association [AOTA], 2020). Effective occupational therapy interventions must be an occupation-based, socially responsive, and client-centered process that is grounded in best evidence and respect for the individual and their context. View on Humans and How They Learn The PNWU School of Occupational Therapy (SOT) professional program is based on the philosophical belief that participation in meaningful occupations is necessary for humans to learn, grow, and flourish. Moreover, occupational engagement is a human right and a determinant of health and wellbeing (AOTA, 2020). Individuals, groups, communities, and populations have the right to participate in occupations that have meaning and value for their lives. Occupational engagement is transactional as the person, occupation, and context/environment co-constitute and co-influence one another. Occupations may change over the life course as individuals develop mentally, physically, and socially and take on new roles. Human learning occurs through occupation via inquiry into the dynamic transaction between a person and a task in the context of the relevant environment. Such learning occurs incrementally through the repeated practice of inquiry across the life course. Occupational therapy strives to facilitate this transaction in ways that promote occupational engagement and the health and wellbeing of the mind- body whole (AOTA, 2020). Educational Philosophy The fundamental belief in occupational therapy education is that students are occupational beings who are actively engaged in an inclusive, client-centered, evidence-based, and occupation-focused teaching- learning process in a way that “promotes professional and clinical reasoning; critical thinking; cultural understanding; and the integration of professional values, theories, evidence, ethics, and skills” (AOTA, 144 | School of Occupational Therapy 2018, p. 1). Occupational therapy education is a life-long process that begins with didactic and experiential learning in an academic setting and continues throughout one’s career to “shape a practitioner’s professional identity” (AOTA, 2018, p. 1). Because health and healthcare landscapes are continually changing, future practitioners must be prepared to function within traditional biomedical, disease-focused models and institutional care settings while being equally positioned to advance the profession through carving new paths and leveraging opportunities in emerging settings. Moreover, future practice must increasingly emphasize services that promote health, prevent disease and disability, and address social and behavioral determinants of health to bring ‘health’ and ‘care’ to an increasingly diverse clientele. The future of healthcare, therefore, requires graduates to be prepared: 1. To assess situations and problems holistically, carefully, and critically; 2. To collaborate and be in constant dialogue with clients, other practitioners, and stakeholders to imagine and shape potential solutions; and 3. To evaluate, reflect on, and assess outcomes and needs to modify approaches and treatments. Understanding the transactional relationship of people and their contexts, the individual and social habits shaped through those relationships, and how individual and community problems arise from situations that adversely impact occupational performance, occupational participation and wellbeing are central to the way that students learn about occupation and occupational therapy in our curriculum. This philosophical approach to education and practice, which underlies the PNWU SOT curricula, is the Transactional Perspective on Occupation (Cutchin & Dickie, 2013). The SOT implements a focus on this transactional perspective, especially through its central tenant of inquiry as the formative concept underlying our curriculum’s educational philosophy. The basis for the Transactional Perspective is found in the philosophy of John Dewey, in particular his theories of education, habits, inquiry, growth, and community (Aldrich & Cutchin, 2013; Cutchin, 2007; Cutchin, 2013; Dickie et al., 2006). Guided by the Transactional Perspective on Occupation, the SOT curriculum aims to train students through developing capacities, habits, and skills in the areas of observation, critical and professional reasoning, creativity and imagination, collaboration, reflection, and evaluation, and thereby, complex problem solving. Those capacities are developed in the context of learning, especially social learning, about the distinct value of occupation and occupational therapy. The educational philosophy is implemented throughout the curriculum in various ways, emphasizing the following concepts: • Transactions are the active, ever changing functional relations that integrate persons and situations (Dickie et al., 2006). • Occupations are a fundamental part of the transactional relationship between people and their various contexts. Through occupation, people functionally coordinate themselves and their world to keep the transactional unit whole and operational for the benefit of the dimensions that constitute it (Cutchin & Dickie, 2012; Dickie et al., 2006). • Problematic Situations are indeterminate situations occurring in everyday life and occupation that are the impetus for thought and action to bring them to resolution (Cutchin, 2013). • Habits are one’s predisposition to modes of response (thoughts and actions) acquired through the repeated experiences of individuals in particular contexts (Cutchin, 2007). • Inquiry is a process that includes observing, reasoning, imagining, discussion and deliberation,