Empathy and Support Make all the Difference

Christa Willcutt

Dental hygiene adjunct instructor

3-30-22

            I am new to the teaching world. My education has always come by way of patient care. I am new at students, if that makes sense. However, I have raised three girls and had to learn to understand a lot of feelings to help them all through teenage years. I have used my mom training on empathy to help the mostly young female group of students who I teach now, in a very high stress environment. One student in particular stands out to me in my 2 ½ semesters at LCC.

            In the hygiene program we have mentor/mentee assignments. My second semester I was assigned to a junior student in my group of mentees who seemed to be struggling more than usual. I approached this student to ask her if there was anything I could help her with to get her where she needed to be in time management. This was quite a struggle for her. She tried to hold it together, but not long into our conversation she began to cry into her mask. She explained her struggles with ADHD and the requirements of the program and the anxiety that builds feeling like she will run behind, which lead to mistakes, which actually puts her behind.

            We sat and talked about different pointers that I could give her as a clinician in the real world, that may reduce time for her. She was very receptive to my suggestions and she asked me to give her appropriate estimates of time for each of her tasks. One variable we couldn’t control in a clinic setting is how long we will need to wait for an instructor check because usually 4-5 people need us all at once. I then offered to work with her at every clinic session that we worked together in so we could eliminate one more unforeseen, “who would my pod instructor be?”. A few days later I did receive an e mail from student services, that was also sent to the director and my lead instructor asking me for time frames for this particular student. I put together a worksheet that the student and I agreed upon was reasonable. I stayed with her and popped in on her to keep her on track with time and give friendly reminders. She bought a clock to put on her counter for the days that we didn’t work together. Today this student is receiving 2 out of the 3 awards that we are presenting at graduation and was the subject of our recent ATM meeting as the senior who has the best time management techniques and how we should use her ways to coach others.