The 'Clinical Humanities & Wellbeing programme'- sustainable healthcare education for an era of uncertainty

This article presents a case study where integration of arts and humanities into a clinical programme is being implemented at scale, as core mandatory learning for all students within a UK dental, undergraduate context. The cross-disciplinary programme described, that integrates the Humanities with Clinical Sciences, is a longitudinal professional identity formation curriculum for sustainable oral healthcare which aligns with the UK dental regulator's proposals for a 'safe practitioner' framework for new graduates. The Clinical Humanities & Wellbeing modules embrace the emotional and attitudinal aspects of learning and educate clinical students for the practical wisdom (phronesis) required to deliver 21st century oral healthcare in an era of uncertainty. The overarching aim of the curriculum and its accompanying assessment is to promote critical reflection, student insight and development of integrity, reflexivity, and responsibility. Enabling the subjectification of professional identity formation in this cross-disciplinary way aims to develop students as 'safe practitioners', with increased professional autonomy, responsible for their own actions, and who are better equipped for the uncertainties and phronesis of clinical practice. At present, the programme is being evaluated, employing illuminative evaluation methodology and we present some tentative initial findings. The authors believe that this unique approach and signature pedagogy is, with careful curation, transferrable to other health professions' contexts.

Experiential learning spaces and student wellbeing: a mixed-methods study of students at three research intensive UK universities

There is clear evidence that university students are experiencing significant mental health difficulties, further exacerbated by the temporary closure of university campuses during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Against this backdrop, our study - Student Wellbeing and Experiential Learning Spaces (SWELS) - explored the role of experiential learning spaces in supporting student wellbeing. We adopted a mixed-methods approach, consisting of an online survey and interviews with students from three research intensive UK Universities. The survey results revealed that compared to the national average of 16-25-year-olds from the UK Office for National Statistics' (ONS) wellbeing questionnaire, the sampled students exhibited significantly lower levels of life satisfaction, happiness, perceived worthwhileness and higher levels of anxiety. The qualitative results further confirmed that students perceived their wellbeing to be affected by their university experience and the COVID pandemic. However, the results also suggest that experiential learning spaces (such as museums, collections, libraries, and gardens) hold strong potential to support student mental health. Accordingly, the study indicates that diversifying module content and conscientiously considering both physical and digital learning spaces can positively impact students. In short, curricula that are cognisant of the physical learning environment and embed a focus on wellbeing into their content might help to bolster student wellbeing.

Transformative Learning in the Art Museum: A Methods Review

Clinical educators are continually seeking innovative methods and settings for teaching. As such, they have increasingly begun to use art museums as a new educational space in which to build clinically-relevant skills and promote learners' professional identity formation. Art museum-based pedagogy can be understood through the framework of transformative learning theory, which provides an account of how adults learn through experience. In this article, the authors apply this theory to art museum-based teaching and offer a practical overview of art museum-based activities, highlighting three exemplars: visual thinking strategies, personal responses tour, and group poems. This toolbox of art museum-based teaching methods provides a launching pad for educators and learners to explore this innovative educational strategy.

Clinical Humanities; informal, transformative learning opportunities, where knowledge gained from Humanities epistemologies is translated back into clinical practice, supporting the development of professional autonomy in undergraduate dental students

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. Nurturing the successful professional and personal development of undergraduate dental students is the fundamental obligation of their Clinical teacher. Considering this within a framework of the various models of professional development provides an appropriate lens to analyse in depth the informal learning that takes place within the workplace of the dental clinics. In an effort to then address some of the perceived shortcomings of the existing dental curriculum an innovative arts and humanities intervention is subsequently described which in providing alternative informal learning opportunities appears to be increasing student clinical capabilities and humanistic skills, thus enhancing their professional and personal development and improving their capacity to deliver holistic patient care.

Clinical Humanities; informal, transformative learning opportunities, where knowledge gained from Humanities epistemologies is translated back into clinical practice, supporting the development of professional autonomy in undergraduate dental students

This article was migrated. The article was not marked as recommended. Nurturing the successful professional and personal development of undergraduate dental students is the fundamental obligation of their Clinical teacher. Considering this within a framework of the various models of professional development provides an appropriate lens to analyse in depth the informal learning that takes place within the workplace of the dental clinics. In an effort to then address some of the perceived shortcomings of the existing dental curriculum an innovative arts and humanities intervention is subsequently described which in providing alternative informal learning opportunities appears to be increasing student clinical capabilities and humanistic skills, thus enhancing their professional and personal development and improving their capacity to deliver holistic patient care.