Humanization in Healthcare and Dentistry: The Unpaid Debt

By Andrea Lorena Basualdo Allende, DDS

Humanization in healthcare is a concept that goes beyond addressing patients’ needs from a purely technical standpoint. It also encompasses kindness within healthcare systems, collegial relationships, and the treatment healthcare workers receive from both patients and employers.

Humanizing care means inclusion, solidarity, and the fulfillment of individuals’ rights. Illness impacts every aspect of a person’s life—physical, spiritual, ethical, and social. Recognizing patients as whole beings, encompassing biological, psychological, social, spiritual, and cultural dimensions, is essential for meaningful care. This holistic approach requires the participation of patients, families, healthcare workers, and supportive work environments.

In response to this need, The Joint Commission has implemented new workplace violence prevention requirements for accredited behavioral healthcare and human services organizations, ensuring comprehensive care and safety for all stakeholders (The Joint Commission, n.d.; Andino, 2018).

Key Workplace Violence Prevention Requirements (The Joint Commission, n.d.):

• Leadership oversight
• Worksite analysis processes
• Clear policies and procedures for prevention
• Reporting systems, data collection, and analysis
• Post-incident strategies
• Training and education to reduce workplace violence

Dentistry: Beyond Technical Excellence

In dentistry, technical education has traditionally been prioritized, with strong emphasis on using the best techniques and materials across diverse clinical situations. Yet, the true challenge lies in this question: Does resolving oral health problems rely solely on technique and materials?

The answer is no.
Dental students and practitioners must understand that comprehensive diagnoses must include a patient’s general, oral, mental, and social health. The “best technique” is not simply the most advanced—it is the one that resolves the patient’s problem in its entirety, not just temporarily (Vargas et al., 2020).

Unfortunately, many frontline providers lack sensitivity to the social and structural determinants that impact underprivileged patients’ health (Lévesque, Levine and Bedos, 2015).

Mental Health in Dentistry

One stark manifestation of dissatisfaction within dentistry is the profession’s alarmingly high suicide rate, among the highest compared to other medical fields.

Dental work can feel unwelcome and underappreciated, leaving dentists poorly prepared to manage the emotional realities of their patients. When confronted with patients experiencing the complex consequences of pain or heightened emotional states, dentists often face strained relationships and professional burnout (Apelian, Vergnes and Bedos, 2014).

Humanized Care: A New Perspective

Humanized care is not limited to the public sphere. As Dr. Adair Busato wisely said:
“We take care of people, not just teeth.” (Vargas et al., 2020, p. 34)

Patients feel safer and more confident when treated by dentists who not only have professional and technical expertise but also maintain humane and friendly communication. While dental anxiety remains common, emerging humanization policies and the use of Digital Health tools may help reduce these fears significantly in the near future (Humanization in Dental Care, 2012).

From Biomedical to Person-Centered Models

The old biomedical model—disease-focused and intervention-driven—is shifting toward a person-centered model that emphasizes patients’ needs and concerns above all else.

The humanization model in dentistry rests on three pillars:

1. Understanding – Seeing the patient as a whole person, acknowledging fears, and validating emotions.
2. Decision-making – Acting as an advisor within a therapeutic alliance, respecting autonomy and individual values.
3. Intervention – Providing therapeutic care while also recognizing when to refer patients appropriately to other colleagues or medical professionals (Apelian, Vergnes and Bedos, 2014).

The Role of Education and Technology

Training in humanization must include both theoretical and practical components. Today, immersive tools such as virtual reality (the Metaverse) hold promise for enhancing this type of education.

Such tools may allow dental students to combine training in humanization with skills in teledentistry, preparing them to solve community problems and improve population health outcomes. Critical training from a humanized perspective empowers students to create, analyze, and expand solutions that positively impact patients’ quality of life (Gonzalez-Moreno et al., 2023).

Conclusion

Humanization in healthcare—and particularly in dentistry—is not an optional addition to technical expertise. It is a necessary transformation that ensures both patients and practitioners are treated with dignity, respect, and compassion.

When dentistry embraces humanization, it shifts from treating teeth to truly caring for people—restoring not just smiles, but trust, well-being, and hope.

References (Harvard Style)

• Andino, A.C.A. (2018) ‘The humanization, an ethical issue in the accreditation of health’, Revista Colombiana de Bioética, 13(2), pp. 68–86.
• Apelian, N., Vergnes, J-N. and Bedos, C. (2014) ‘Humanizing clinical dentistry through a person-centered model’, The International Journal of Whole Person Care, 1. doi:10.26443/ijwpc.v1i2.2.
• Gonzalez-Moreno, M., et al. (2023) ‘Improving humanization through Metaverse-related technologies: A systematic review’, Electronics, 12(7), p. 1727. doi:10.3390/electronics12071727.
• Humanization in dental care: reception of the subjectivity of patients treated by undergraduate students in dentistry (2012) Arquivos em Odontologia, 48(3), pp. 151–158.
• Lévesque, M.C., Levine, A. and Bedos, C. (2015) ‘Ideological roadblocks to humanizing dentistry: an evaluative case study of a continuing education course on social determinants of health’, International Journal for Equity in Health, 14(1), p. 14. doi:10.1186/s12939-015-0170-2.
• The Joint Commission (n.d.) A trusted partner in patient care. Available at: https://www.jointcommission.org/(Accessed: 22 August 2025).
• Vargas, K.F. de, Wuttke, I.C., Brew, M.C.C. da C.H., Busato, A.L.S., Bavaresco, C.S. and Moura, F.R.R. de (2020) ‘Formação humanizada em Odontologia: um olhar diferenciado para a subjetividade’, Revista da ABENO, 20(1), pp. 33–43. doi:10.30979/rev.abeno.v20i1.869jj.