Student group’s challenge

“Children with a cleft lip, also known as a hare lip. These children undergo surgery and then have to rinse their mouth with chlorhexidine. Children experience this as very nasty, so the students wanted to work on completely adjusting the taste of chlorhexidine. For this, they talked to pharmacists and pharmaceutical companies. However, they were very few possibilities to alter the taste of chlorhexidine. All the possibilities that students came up with led to a dead end. Because of this, the students switched to the problem of providing information. Can you give an example? Well, the pharmacist just told them, ‘that it is a nice idea, but they cannot do anything about the taste of chlorhexidine’. So, it then stopped, that line of thought just stopped. Then students can jump high or low, but if the pharmacy says that it is not allowed to rinse it with another liquid, then it quickly stops. At these moments, students have to shift gears very much from ‘if this is not the solution, then how are we going to tackle this problem?’ […] How did the students react? The students—of course—were very disappointed” […] The students felt bad [T9 cleft lip].

Teaching activities

“At these moments, I encourage students to talk to their stakeholders, think for themselves, ask people around them and brainstorm with others. There are several design thinking tools and I provide students with these design thinking tools. […] Then, I also discuss with the students what it does for them and look at them. I also help them on their way to other possibilities, instead of just referring to things. Often, I say, ‘okay, now we are here and that is less pleasant. What could be another solution?’ Then we will explore alternative solutions together and I provide students with the design thinking tools to continue exploring alternative solutions. So that students can take another, a better path” [T9 cleft lip].