The vegan dental patient

The quality of the patient experience is an important factor of dental health care, which has a massive impact on patients’ perceptions of its quality. The patient experience is the sum of a combination of the team's clinical and interpersonal skills and cultural awareness. Some patients are easy to relate to and to build enduring professional relationships with, whereas other can be more challenging. Every practice will have a diverse range of people in its patient base; in multicultural Britain, welcoming people with different values, beliefs and lifestyles is the norm and accommodated by our growing knowledge and understanding gained either through direct contact with different people or via the ‘Global Village’. There are many ways in which the team can find that the patient in the chair is challenging, this article looks at one particular case – that of a committed vegan.