Volume 9 • 2022 • Issue 1

Grief is not an illness. It’s not a disease. It’s not a diagnosis. It’s simply a human experience. As soon as you start talking about grief, people who are experiencing it feel relieved. Q What kind of scholarship has been done with the anthropology of oral health? MEM: Well, I would start with the classic public health approaches to oral health research. These include considering vulnerabilized populations and their access (or lack of access) to oral health and oral health services. This work includes questions about how the oral health systems continue to be structured, including the professional history of dentistry and how it was and continues to be separated from other health domains. Many populations have been made vulnerable by this professional history. I think you have to start upstream and consider what has caused people to become vulnerable. Indigenous peoples, older adults, and children, for example, have been made vulnerable by a system that does not prioritize caring for their oral health—for lots of different reasons. It could be that our society doesn’t choose to invest money in fluoridation or even clean drinking water. Also, access to fresh food in rural communities. And, some patients are simply not considered “easy” to care for, like small children, for example. These are some of the questions that an oral health anthropologist can explore. We are interested in the socio-cultural foundations that help us understand the strengths and weaknesses of our current oral health systems. Q How did you become interested in grief? MEM: I did research in palliative care as a post-doctoral fellow. Through this work, I was continually drawn to the experience of the people who were left behind after a death—the grievers. My original research was in pediatric palliative care, and I became interested in what it was like to be a parent in our society after your child died, and what grieving people want and need from their communities. At the time, we didn’t know much about this topic. In my work, I saw that it doesn’t help grieving parents that many of us (that is, health care professionals, and community members alike) are afraid to talk about death and grief, are afraid to think about what it means to live this experience. I think it’s partly that people often feel “There but for grace of God, go I.” That relief, and also fear, keeps us from talking about it. But that silence isolates people who need the support of their communities. Grief is not an illness. It’s not a disease. It’s not a diagnosis. It’s simply a human experience. As soon as you start talking about grief, people who are experiencing it feel relieved. Grieving people mainly want a safe space to share their experiences. They don’t want to be pathologized, excluded, silenced or patronized. Listening can be a simple answer to grief. To support someone who is grieving, you can listen and bear witness. You’re not going to cure it. You’re not going to fix it. But you can be available and witness it. This presence, however, does take some education and training. And that is why I have worked with my colleagues to develop the concept of grief literacy. Q Why does dentistry need better grief literacy? MEM: I would say we all need it—not just dentists! Dentistry has an opportunity to be a place where grief can be acknowledged. Sometimes patients die. Many patients come to the office already experiencing grief. Our colleagues, too, experience death and losses. In palliative care, people have training in acknowledging and integrating grief. So, when you work on a palliative care team and one of your patients dies, you can express your feelings in the team and everyone knows how to listen. Grief can be processed openly and with the support of your colleagues. In most other health care and professional contexts, we have yet to learn to do this well. And so, there’s much hidden death and loss. It’s happening to the people around us every day. What if we could help? And grief is not just about death losses. In dentistry, sometimes aging patients also grieve the loss of a healthy mouth. Sometimes patients grieve the loss of a tooth, the loss of the Issues and People