W-101 - Homelessness, Barriers to Care and Intellectual Empathy

It is important that dental professionals develop intellectual empathy with those different than themselves, to have an awareness of the need to imaginatively put oneself in the place of others to genuinely understand them and to discuss barriers to dental care. To promote intellectual empathy, dental students visited homeless clients at a hotel that is run by the homeless. At the hotel there is direct interaction including face-to-face conversations with the clients discussing the barriers to dental treatment. We developed surveys—administered before and after the event—utilizing Likert scale questions to determine if there was an increase in empathy for those different from themselves.