Critical Thinking

Critical thinking in opinion is the ability to solve complex problems, requiring deep thinking while challenging your reasoning. I feel this assignment takes some critical thinking in how to help others think critically. What I got out of the handbook concerning this topic was how to ask and answer questions to make one apply the knowledge they have retained. I know that in clinic our instructors made us critically think whenever we had patients who were on medications. If the patient were on a certain medication we had to look it up in the medical dictionary to determine exactly what it was used for and learn about the side effects. If they had anything that seemed unusually in the mouth then we were responsible for finding out what it was and how we could fix it. For every new medication we had to make a flash card and be prepared to use it if any problems ever occurred. I can recall a time when I had a patient that had Alzheimer's disease, he could not hold his toothbrush, he could not understand a thing I was saying and he had the mentality of a three year old. Being a first year student this was a challenge for me, not only cleaning his teeth but putting a treatment plan together. The instructor asked me questions such as " What different techniques can we use in order to get his teeth cleaned and are there any ideas we can use to help him brush his teeth daily at home?" I ended up having to use a bite block each time he came in and we involved his wife with his home care.

I think we can help students critically think by picking one patient each morning who will be challenging in some way and having the students all come up with how they could make it better than discussing it at the end of the day. This would require critical thinking throughout the day and the opportunity to help each other. It would also allow the students to see other students perspective bringing out some creativity. I think it is important to know your students and figure out how each one learns in order to decide what is going to be a challenge for that student. What may be critical thinking for someone may not be for another. In our second year of clinic we had an opportunity to work with a home health care center for the mentally handicapped. We were in groups of three and each group was assigned a person. We had to analyze this patient and decide mentally where they were, and what they were capable of doing physically. We spent several hours talking and getting to know them. We had to figure out what they needed to improve on orally and we had to come up with ideas on how we could get them to remember what they needed to improve. We presented our cases to our classmates and shared the appliances that were modified for each individual. Critical thinking was definitely something we had to use.