A restorative approach to professional responsibility: lessons from the 2014-2015 Dalhousie Faculty of Dentistry Facebook incident

Abstract

In September 2015, a New York Times editorial proposed restorative justice as an alternative approach to ‘campus misconduct’ and highlighted a highly publicised gender-based misconduct incident involving dentistry students as an example of how restorative justice can work to meet goals of repairing harms to individuals and community. This article draws directly on student and faculty experiences to provide a first-hand account of the incident cited by the Times. It identifies unique considerations for students entering into a self-regulating profession and for the educators who provide stewardship to that end. The restorative approach was able to integrate student remediation within a process that, foremost, atten‐ ded to those harmed while also addressing a wider set of institutional considera‐ tions. The years following this incident have witnessed a growing acceptance of disrespectful public discourse and sexist rhetoric that is certain to negatively influence incoming students and continue to create challenges for educators, administrators and professional regulators. Reflecting on and sharing lessons learned demonstrates that a restorative approach shows great promise for addressing these challenges. Like all health professions, the dentistry profession is susceptible to erosion of public trust when values and behaviour of its members are called into question. In keeping with their tacit responsibility to professional regulators and society in general, dental educators establish and uphold standards for those entering the profession that include professionalism requirements (Shaw, 2009; Trathen & Gallagher, 2009; Zijlstra-Shaw, Roberts & Robinson, 2013). These norms typically focus on accountability for decisions and actions in carrying out professional work (Zijlstra-Shaw et al., 2013) while the relevance to professionalism of behav‐ iours occurring outside ‘professional work’ is less clear. Sexually-based and gen‐ der-based misconduct represents behaviour that is outside the ethos of professio‐ nal work yet, the ‘Dalhousie University 2014-15 Facebook’ incident (Auld, 2014) highlights the significance of this type of behaviour to professionalism and, by