Articles Related to Shared Decision Making
“What Matters to You?”: Shared Decision Making in the Post-Paternalistic Era of Oral Health
We live in an individualistic age. People can follow who they like on social media, read news that aligns with their preconceived notions of right and wrong, and generally avoid critical engagement with ideas they disagree with or situations that make them uncomfortable. This modern phenomenon has led to quick judgement and rapid recoil when others share ideas or information that challenges the inertia of their beliefs and choices. In a post-expertise culture [1], people simply don’t want to be told what to do. This is a problem for the profession of dentistry, where the prevailing paternalistic norms for the better part of the past 150 years have focused on the dentist as the unilateral authority, with the primary responsibility of promoting oral health through “education” or “counseling” – polite euphemisms for telling people what to do. Despite our growing body of scientific evidence showing we can keep people and their teeth healthy, we have become collectively exasperated that this evidence-based information isn’t enough to change the behaviors necessary to prevent disease. As healthcare providers, we wonder why people have stopped listening (if they ever really did). But stepping back, we only need to think for a minute about our current cultural milieu, where
the curation of consensus leaves us unfollowed, and worse, blocked.