24 - Health Equity Begins in the Classroom: Including Cultural Competence and Cultural Humility into Dental Education Curriculum with Librarian-Led Instruction

Background: This poster describes the author’s experience as a Dental Medicine Liaison Librarian introducing cultural competence and cultural humility into dental medicine curriculum of an academic R1 institution by threading it through information literacy presentations, assignments and instruction during the students’ first year of their graduate education.

The aim of the author is to demonstrate how they utilized the limited time given in the dental medicine curriculum to successfully incorporate cultural competence and cultural humility into their instruction and lesson plans, encouraging students to continue to apply the concepts of self-reflection and life-long learning as they moved through their four-year program.

Description: In the role of the Dental Medicine Liaison Librarian, the author collaborated with members of the School of Dental Medicine teaching faculty to develop lesson plans, making space for librarian led instruction in several classes of the first-year dental education program. Interacting with the students multiple times early into their program provided a unique opportunity for the author to establish a presence within the curriculum.

The author brought their lived experiences as a BIPOC and expertise of cultural competence and cultural humility into the classroom. With support from the teaching faculty, the author created lesson plans and small group class activities that encouraged students to engage with one another through storytelling and critical thinking. Students were asked to practice cultural humility and apply cultural competence when considering clinical case scenarios and developing research questions for class assignments or projects.

Conclusion: By meeting with new cohorts several times at the beginning of their program, librarians become recognized for playing an important role as contributors to the dental medicine education experience early, building rapport with both faculty and students. This can provide opportunities to create unique, but important curricular content that faculty instructors may not have the expertise or capacity to provide. Introducing cultural competence and cultural humility can fill a gap within a traditional dental medicine program, establishing a foundation for students to build on as they moved from the classroom, to the clinic, and eventually into practice providing empathetic health care, leading to improved health equity and better health outcomes for diverse communities.