[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on Communication within the Dental Field
A crucial and important starting position for the field of health communication was the beginning of the Stanford Heart Disease Prevention Program. It was a many year community involvement, which started around 25 years ago. The field of Health communication is a specialty field of communication studies which fundamentally involves the media agenda-setting process for various health issues; and media advocacy for health; and more importantly it encompasses scientific communication among biomedical scientists; doctor and patient communication; and, predominantly, the design and evaluation of all the preventive health communication campaigns. Health communication study in these times is a well-established, increasing specialty in the United States as well as abroad.
In the field of dentistry, knowledge and technical skills are not the sole prerequisites that will ensure a good practice for the dentist. An ability to communicate effectively with the patients is also essential. In other words, the dentist should be able to use active listening skills, in order to collect and impart information effectively, and also to handle patient emotions sensitively, and at the same time be able to exhibit empathy, rapport, ethical awareness, and professionalism. Moreover, many studies have observed that numerous benefits come out when dentists establish and exhibit effective communication skills; some of the common ones are an increased patient satisfaction, improved patients devotion to dental recommendations, and also a decreased patient anxiety, and lower rates of formal complaints and malpractice claims are received.
The significance of behavioral sciences, and especially communication skills, was formally acknowledged in the United Kingdom; when the 1990 publication of the General Dental Council’s guidelines featured the inclusion of behavioral sciences teaching in all of the dental schools (General Dental Council, 1990). Similarly, in the United States, in 1993 the guidelines issued by the American Association of Dental Schools acknowledged core areas of behavioral science and communication skills which were to be incorporated in the dental curriculum.......
