Experience: A Nelson Croom Orange Part 3

by Angela Smith

I talked in my last blog about the power of reflection, but didn’t have time to deal with absence of experience – how we can effect attitude change where there is no relevant experience present. Can we give some semblance of real life experience online, and can people reflect to similar effect on imagined experiences or the experiences of others?

You might say that being exposed to other people’s experiences didn’t do much for Alex (see “A Nelson Croom Orange Part 1”), but in this case there was something missing. Alex was exposed to the harrowing experiences of others (as I was in the horror stories the Health and Safety man told me – see “A Nelson Croom Orange Part 2”), but to a connoisseur of violence this was easy viewing. The only reason he was put off violence was because he had been conditioned to feel physically sick when confronted with it. If he stopped feeling sick the deterrent would be gone. Indeed, the nausea would have detracted from any emotional impact the films might have had. What was missing for Alex was making the connection between his experience and the experience of others, thereby changing his attitude to violence – there was no human or moral centre to the treatment.

So how do we make this connection work? Well, we can simulate situations and ask people what they would do. It may not sound revolutionary, but it works. Once a learner has committed to their actions by writing them down, we can help them understand what consequences their actions might have had in real life, which can be quite powerful. Let’s take an example from one of our implant dentistry courses - “Your patient comes in complaining of A, B and a swollen C – what do you do?” Having given your answer, to be told that you missed something on an x-ray and your patient would probably be dead, or that you shouldn't have made a decision at all without a missing piece of information, can really make an impact.

And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather the learner made that mistake online before they’ve even thought about “having a go” at implantology than when I’m sitting in their chair.