FROM THE STACKS
EDITOR’S NOTE: There are literally thousands of journals published around the world that relate to the disability community. It is virtually impossible to capture even a fraction of them. HELEN receives "stacks" of journals and selectively earmarks what we feel are "must read" articles of interest for our readers. It's a HELEN perk!
Partnering to Provide Dental Care to Special Needs Patients
*The Hospital for Special Care partners with the UConn School of Dental Medicine to deliver onsite dental care. (Hospital for Special Care photo)
By Courtney Chandler (UConn Today - 06/10/2025)
When the need for high-quality dental care for patients with special health care needs meets a learning opportunity for dental residents, a thriving community partnership is born.
The partnership between the School of Dental Medicine and the Hospital for Special Care (HFSC) epitomizes the benefits of a fruitful community partnership—UConn dental residents get exposure to caring for patients with special health care needs, while hospital patients get access to high-quality dental care.
Located in New Britain, the Hospital for Special Care is the fourth largest, free-standing long-term acute care hospital in the United States and one of only two in the nation serving both adults and children.
Identifying a need for onsite dental care for their medically complex patients, the HFSC contacted the School of Dental Medicine in 2022 to re-establish regular and on-going onsite dental care after discontinuing their clinic. Previously, the hospital and dental school had an arrangement that included a pediatric dentistry faculty member from UConn providing on-site dental care for half day per week.
Nearly two years later, the partnership is thriving. The new arrangement allows HFSC patients to receive timely, and more efficient dental care. It is also more cost-effective, as it has largely eliminated the need for costly medical transportation between New Britain and UConn Health in Farmington for patients in need of dental care.
“The ability to provide on-site dental care is more patient-friendly, less costly, and more responsive to the needs of a very medically complex patient population,” said Dr. Steven Lepowsky, dean of the School of Dental Medicine.
Dr. Sadaf Salehi and Dr. Basma Essawy in the onsite dental suite at the Hospital for Special Care.
“The UConn dental team is truly dedicated to the patients of Hospital for Special Care,” said Jennifer Farley, Chief Quality Officer and Vice President of Organizational Excellence at the Hospital for Special Care. “Since the beginning, the dentists have been aligned with the mission of Hospital for Special Care and are engaged in fulfilling the needs of our patients. We love providing a place for the dental students to develop skills in dentistry for special needs populations. This relationship has been mutually beneficial, and we couldn’t have asked for a better partner.”
Twice a month, a second-year Advanced Education in General Dentistry (AEGD) resident, accompanied by Dr. Basma Essawy, clinical assistant professor of general dentistry, staff the dental suite at the Hospital for Special Care.
On a typical day, Essawy and the resident treat patients in the dental suite. At the end of the day, they go bedside to evaluate patients and create a plan of action to care for patients in need of dental care the next time they staff the suite.
These patients have a large range of medically complex conditions, ranging from traumatic brain injuries, to autism, to heart disease.
“I feel really grateful at the end of the day to be able to care for special needs patients,” said Essawy.
Sometimes, situations are emergent. When dental emergencies occur, the presence of the UConn dental on HFSC’s campus is convenient.
“One day, we had an emergency towards the end of the day. They called us we were immediately able to go upstairs and handle that situation,” Essawy recalled. “The patient’s mom was there, and you could see how relieved she was that her son was helped immediately.”
More complex cases, including ones that require oral surgery and sedation, get a referral to the UConn Health Farmington campus.
To date, there have been over 200 patient encounters since the start of the program.
For the UConn residents, the learning experience is invaluable. Dr. Natalie Pesun, a second-year AEGD resident, describes her days at the Hospital For Special Care as a “one day long intensive” for caring for patients with special health care needs.
“There are so many more considerations for special needs patients,” said Pesun. “They are often on more medications, their mouth can’t open as wide, they may have involuntary movements, or it can be harder to explain the treatment. Also, dealing with paperwork side of things, including communicating with conservators and power of attorneys.”
Pesun continues, “I had done a few hospital rotations in dental school, but this is nothing like it. The need for dental care for special needs patients is huge, and if I hadn’t gone through the AEGD residency program at UConn, I don’t know if I’d be comfortable seeing special needs patients. The Hospital for Special Care rotation compliments my residency really well.”
With the partnership being relatively new, Essawy largely credits the success of the program to the teamwork between the Hospital for Special Care and UConn. The HSFC staff, Essawy notes, helps iron out all the challenges to make sure everything is working smoothly. The UConn team gets everything that they need—from an updated dental suite that mimics the one in Farmington, to advice from the Chief Medical Officer to patient coordinators and occupational therapists helping with patient oral desensitization prior to treatment. The support from the hospital staff is crucial.
“As we grow, we will face challenges, but for now we have a great team that allow us to overcome challenges in a short amount of time,” said Essawy. “Everyone is working to make this program successful.”
AI and Humanity in Healthcare: Preserving What Makes Us Human
By Harvey Castro, MD, MBA
(KevinMD.com - 06/27/2025)
As artificial intelligence gains ground in every aspect of healthcare, from diagnostics to documentation, an urgent question arises: Are we gaining efficiency at the cost of empathy?
Drawing inspiration from Simon Sinek’s perspective on AI and humanity, this piece explores how healthcare can embrace innovation without compromising the very heart of medicine.
1. Humanity first, technology second
“I’m not in the AI business. I’m in the humanity business.” – Simon Sinek
AI may enhance our ability to diagnose faster and more accurately, but it will never replace the human connection that defines medicine. While AI can detect pneumonia from a chest X-ray in seconds, it cannot sit beside a patient to deliver terminal news compassionately.
Clinical takeaway: Let AI do the scans, but let the physician gracefully deliver the truth.
2. The value of struggle in medical training
The long nights, clinical uncertainty, and emotional toll of medical training have a formative value. They are not efficiencies; they are crucibles in which resilient, empathetic clinicians are shaped.
When we lean too heavily on AI early in training, we risk raising doctors who are more dependent on algorithms than on their judgment.
Key question: Are we training more competent or dependent physicians?
3. Empathy over efficiency
Sinek reminds us that if AI handles difficult conversations, we’ll never learn to be good friends, partners, or doctors.
Empathy is forged through the most challenging moments in medicine: navigating end-of-life discussions, supporting grieving families, or managing chronic suffering. These moments should not be outsourced.
Cautionary note: When bots begin handling patient follow-ups, we risk automating empathy right out of the encounter.
4. Educating the next generation of clinicians
Future physicians must know how to prompt AI, but even more importantly, they must know how to be present, compassionate, and accountable.
Medical education must prioritize:
Conflict resolution with patients and colleagues
Gratitude and emotional presence
Ethical decision-making in AI-augmented care settings
Clinical wisdom: Teach students to be doctors first, data scientists second.
5. Authenticity in an AI world
Patients don’t expect perfection; they crave authenticity. Often, the most healing encounters happen not when clinicians have all the answers, but when they’re honest about what they don’t know and commit to discovering the answers together.
In an era of digital precision, vulnerability is our competitive advantage.
Message to clinicians: Don’t fear the human moments. They are what patients remember most.
6. Prescribing purpose to combat loneliness
Sinek’s advice is accurate in patient care and physician wellness: “If you’re feeling lonely, help someone.”
AI can streamline charting, optimize workflows, and even triage care. But it can’t replace the healing power of human connection, for patients or providers.
Reframe: Let AI optimize systems. Let humans optimize the connection.
Final thought: a human-AI alliance, not a replacement plan
Healthcare doesn’t need to choose between innovation and empathy. The goal is not to replace clinicians with AI, but to build a partnership where AI enhances clinical care without erasing our humanity.
If AI is the scalpel, then humanity must remain the surgeon.
About the Author:
Harvey Castro is a physician, health care consultant, and serial entrepreneur with extensive experience in the health care industry. He can be reached on his website, harveycastromd.info, Twitter @HarveycastroMD, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. He is the author of Bing Copilot and Other LLM: Revolutionizing Healthcare With AI, Solving Infamous Cases with Artificial Intelligence, The AI-Driven Entrepreneur: Unlocking Entrepreneurial Success with Artificial Intelligence Strategies and Insights, ChatGPT and Healthcare: The Key To The New Future of Medicine, ChatGPT and Healthcare: Unlocking The Potential Of Patient Empowerment, Revolutionize Your Health and Fitness with ChatGPT’s Modern Weight Loss Hacks, Success Reinvention, and Apple Vision Healthcare Pioneers: A Community for Professionals & Patients.
Why a Former Open AI Exec Is Urging Health Leaders to ‘Specialize in Empathy’
By Katie Adams (Med City News – 06/23/2025)
Even the fiercest proponents of AI understand the enduring importance of human connection in an increasingly technology-driven world.
Zack Kass, an AI expert and former head of go-to-market strategy at OpenAI(Opens in a new window), discussed this idea during a Monday morning address at the HFMA Annual Conference(Opens in a new window) in Denver. To illustrate his point, Kass spoke about an experience he had about six months ago while witnessing his father receive a lifetime achievement award from a breast cancer association.
His father, oncologist Dr. Fred Kass, was being honored for a decades-long career in breast cancer care. During Dr. Kass’ time as an oncologist, the survival rate for breast cancer soared from 35% to about 90%, his son pointed out.
“This is an incredible achievement and a testament to science — and I am so proud of my father, the scientist, that I was not ready for when I heard that evening,” Kass remarked.
Before Kass’ father received his award, one of his breast cancer patients spoke on stage. She had survived her battle with the disease — and Kass admitted he expected her to rave about his father’s unique approach to saving her life.
Instead, she stated that she had gotten three identical diagnoses from three oncologists, all of whom came up with care plans that were pretty much exactly the same.
“She admitted that it occurred to her that the science had gotten so advanced that the machine was better than the doctor at actually prescribing the treatment. So she decided, she said that she would choose the doctor that inspired the most hope,” Kass declared. “In a world where the science had been solved, she realized that bedside manner wasn’t the feature — it was the product.”
In other words, bedside manner is not a “nice-to-have” — it’s the core of care, and it’s what truly matters to patients.
Kass said this woman’s comments changed his life. He realized that his father, who he had always known to be a much-celebrated oncologist in the Santa Barbara area, wasn’t important to the community because he was brilliant — he was important to the community because he was kind and people could tell that he truly cared about them.
“If oncology is about to be solved, what won’t be? And in a world where you can specialize in anything, it’s probably time that we start talking about specializing in our most humanistic qualities — adaptability and courage and empathy and wisdom and curiosity and humor. The list actually goes on,” Kass remarked.
As AI continues to transform the clinical landscape, Kass is optimistic that healthcare leaders won’t lose sight of what makes medicine meaningful.