Responsibility in dental praxis: an activity theoretical perspective

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the transitions practitioners undergo as they move from dental school to their first job in a dental clinic and their learning in the workplace. The paper aims to investigate their use of ethical principles as they engage in practice, providing a theoretical explanation for the gap practitioners experience when moving from the school to the workplace, and also suggesting some viable alternatives for dental education.Design/methodology/approachThe database for this study consists of videotaped interviews with dentists. To analyze our data we followed the principles of interaction analysis, analyzing the data both individually and collectively, until some hypotheses were generated. Then, discourse analysis was used to analyze the interviews.FindingsFrom an activity theoretical perspective, the results show that dentists can and do learn ethical principles when working in their dental clinics, interacting with patients, and the findings and suggestions are of especial interest for curriculum planning and development in educational institutions.Practical implicationsThis study suggests that theoretical discussions about ethics are not enough to provide practitioners with the skills necessary to work ethically when interacting with patients. From the findings a complementary approach to teach ethics in dental schools is suggested.Originality/valueWorkplace learning has become a preferred topic within many disciplines, such as, for example, sociology, education, and anthropology. However, although there is an established field of medical sociology, little if any attention on workplace learning has been paid to the health sciences in general and dentistry in particular.