Engaging equity‐deserving groups in dental education

Although progress in diversity can be noted in the recent years in dental schools1; more action is still necessary to further diversify the learning population. The lack of diversity is recognized as a serious problem in dental education,2, 3 which may be linked, directly or indirectly, with the limited access to dental care services for racialized and ethnic minority groups as they do not feel represented within the dental professional body.4, 5 Over the years, dental schools have suggested some strategies to recruit and admit a diverse students’ body.6 Strategies included partnership with the community (in situ, or the social media group of the neighborhood, for example)7; establishing a pathway program (with orientations offered in high schools and community colleges)8; and offering scholarships for the application process.9 During admissions, it is recommended that schools consider noncognitive indicators (candidate's realistic self-appraisal, volunteerism activities, previous employments, participation in community service, etc.) aiming to construct a more holistic selection process10, 11; and to diversify the admissions committee composition by providing training about interviewing and assessment skills.12 Our dental school wanted to make available all these strategies together, but first and foremost, we wanted to recruit diverse students to increase our pool of diverse applicants. The plan was to provide an assorted recruitment activity that also took into consideration the availability of human resources and a plausible amount of time and financial investment. Our planned recruitment activity was not unprecedented; however, what made it unique was the partnership with a few other schools. For the last two years, the Faculty of Dentistry, University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada, has participated in a short summer program called “Diversifying Health and Human Service Professions Education (D'HoPE)”.13 Upon partnership with the community, the group of health-related UBC schools has invited to the summer activity several equity-deserving groups that included: people who identified as first-generation university students, Disabled, Indigenous, Black individuals and people of color, economically disadvantaged, and those from the 2SLGBTQIAP+ (Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, Pansexual, and others) community. The activity lasted 5 days from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and provided participants with transportation costs, lunch, and a gift as compensation. During this program, students were familiarized with health professional programs such as Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Dentistry, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Nursing, Medicine, and Social Work, and also received information about the admission process, scholarships, and funding. The program aimed to facilitate mentorship and create connections for students through activities such as meeting practitioners and students from the included health professions, and visiting their clinical, teaching, and research sites. Activities were intentionally designed to be inclusive, accessible, and engaging. One key objective was to provide opportunities and support for equity-deserving groups by encouraging discussions related to experiences within health professions. Human personnel from the Faculty of Dentistry and Dental Hygiene supervised a hands-on activity in the dental preclinical simulation Lab, where prospective students learned about caries prevention and had the chance to restore plastic teeth using dental materials. In the last two summers, the D'HoPE program has welcomed many equity-deserving high school and undergraduate students (n = 30 individuals in 2023). The short-term results proved that the partnership between health-related schools encouraged the individuality of prospective candidates because they could explore not only the dentistry field but also other health-related fields. If the students did not feel much interest in dentistry, they could focus on other health-related areas—during the same 5-days of activity, without the need to look for another orientation program. We noticed that the D'HoPE program facilitated mentorship and connections, for example, students engaged in round table conversations with professionals from different healthcare fields asking practical questions about the daily work of each profession. In addition, because this was a joint program with other UBC schools, the Faculty of Dentistry invested less amount of money and human resources compared to a potential stand-alone activity. Mentors had the chance to work only 1 or 2 days, rather than the whole 5 days because the program interspersed different areas (some periods were mentored by personnel from one individual field, and others, by all the fields together). Immediately results were considered fruitful for the future increase in diversity of dental students. Students were exposed to different health professions, creating a program that was more inclusive. Human resources, time, and investment were worthwhile in comparison to having done the activity limited to the dental school. When commenting on their experience with the program, participants told us that: “The program exposed me to a variety of health professions, including one I had never even heard of!” and that “I appreciated the conversations that were initiated about what justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion currently looks like and what it could look like in the future”. The authors would like to thank all the Health Professionals Schools and their organizers that participated in the UBC D'HoPE Program.

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