ABSTRACT
Objective:To investigate the effect of teaching practice under the concept of narrative medicine on improving the empathy level of interns in oral mucosal diseases.Methods:The interns of stomatology in the class of 2018 in School of Stomatology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, were divided into narrative medicine teaching group (27 interns receiving narrative medicine concepts and methods before and during internship) and traditional teaching group (21 interns received patients directly under the guidance of teachers without the addition of narrative medicine concepts and methods). A questionnaire was used to collect the general information of students, and the Chinese version of Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy (JSPE) (the version for medical students) was used to measure the empathy level of students. After the end of internship, a statistical analysis was performed for the scores of both groups, and a questionnaire survey was conducted to investigate the acceptance of internship under the guidance of narrative medicine among the students in the narrative medicine teaching group. GraphPad Prism 9.3.0 was used to perform the t-test and the rank sum test. Results:There was a significant difference in JSPE score between the traditional teaching group and the narrative medicine teaching group (92.26±8.23 vs. 104.20±15.65, t=2.70, P=0.005), and in addition, 88.89% (24/27) of the students in the narrative medicine teaching group were interested in participating in internship under the guidance of narrative medicine. However, there was no significant difference in the score of internship between the narrative medicine teaching group and the traditional teaching group (87.28±2.77 vs. 85.47±4.31, t=1.68, P=0.100). Conclusions:Incorporating the concepts and methods of narrative medicine into clinical teaching of oral mucosal diseases can significantly improve the empathy ability of interns and raise the awareness that empathy is as important as scientific literacy among students.
ABSTRACT
The complexity of oral ulcerations poses considerable diagnostic and therapeutic challenges to oral specialists. The expert consensus was conducted to summarize the diagnostic work-up for difficult and complicated oral ulcers, based on factors such as detailed clinical medical history inquiry, histopathological examination, and ulceration-related systemic diseases screening. Not only it can provide a standardized procedure of oral ulceration, but also it can improve the diagnostic efficiency, in order to avoid misdiagnosis and missed diagnosis.