Can Inclusion of Humanities be a Silver Bullet Solution to Address Problems in Health-Care Education? A Dental Academician's Perspective

The most frequent criticism from patients about the limited time that the doctors are sparing to interact with them highlights the unfortunate shift of the profession from a solemn duty aimed at alleviating the suffering to a financially rewarding line of work. Education at dental colleges focuses on the technical dental practice with limited scope for holistic understanding of the subjects in need. It is less often realized by the dental students that addressing oral health problems of a subject or improving oral health status of a community needs more than technical competency and academic performance. This paper explores the need for inclusion of humanities in dental education in light of the rising public cynicism, creation of incompetent graduates, and the psychologically demanding nature of the dental profession. It is felt that dental graduates are being prepared for the future exclusively technically and therefore incompletely. There is a dire need for inclusion of humanities in the dental curricula. A practical framework for the integration of humanities in dental education is proposed here. The outcomes of humanities in dental education are graduates with humane perspectives, high spirits, substantial clinical acumen, scientific temper, moral reasoning, social responsibility, and political insights who could make the world smile in a real sense.