Bachelor of Dentistry

Overview

The degree of Bachelor of Dentistry prepares students for professional registration in order to practice dentistry on graduation. The program is designed to develop and enhance the skills, knowledge and professional behaviours of motivated and interested students.

Aims

The program aims to produce dentists who will:

• develop, and be committed to maintaining, the highest professional and ethical standards;
• develop the intellectual, technical and personal skills to practice effectively, rationally and compassionately;
• be responsive to the needs of individual patients and committed to improving oral health within the community;
• have a broad understanding of the relationship of general health, disability and illness to oral health and disease;
• develop skills to underpin life-long, self-directed professional learning and the application of evidence to rational decision-making;
• develop an appreciation of the role of research in dentistry and be able to contribute to leadership in clinical dental practice, research, education and community service.

Program Characteristics

Features of the curriculum include:

• development of dental skills from the first week and early patient contact
• an emphasis on effective communication and active learning
• an integrated understanding of medical and dental issues in health and disease
• learning based on clinical problems and emphasising clinical reasoning
• a team approach to learning and clinical work
• an evidence-based approach to practice
• encouragement and support for self-directed learning
• an emphasis on information literacy, and
• opportunities to learn in a range of dental practice settings, including rural placements.

In years 1 and 2, each week of learning is based on the presentation of a clinical problem which students address cooperatively in small groups.

Learning is integrated across dental and medical disciplines and between years; understanding and knowledge are built progressively in a relevant context. Students are challenged to identify key issues for learning and to seek out and share knowledge that will progress the group€™s collective understanding. In years 1 and 2 three tutorials will be held each week at the Sydney Dental Hospital. These tutorials form the basis of the students€™ learning.

The learning process provides the background necessary for reasoning through issues and applying knowledge to resolve clinical problems in practice. It is essential that students progress systematically to become independent learners. They must be able to evaluate their own strengths and weaknesses realistically, and to identify personal learning needs. Those skills underpin successful professional practice and life-long learning.

Most of the problems in the first two years are based on realistic medical problems that illustrate important scientific concepts in health and disease. The problems represent common situations, with an emphasis on those that are treatable or preventable, and are constructed to stress diagnostic reasoning and scientific principles of management. In addition, each problem raises one or more issues of importance in practice: ethical, behavioral, social, and interpersonal. Some problems raise issues relating to the distribution of health care or to research. Each problem specifically encourages dental students to explore within their own groups the wider relevant implications of the problem.

On the Camperdown campus, most lectures and other laboratory sessions are shared with medical students. Some classes and seminars, however, are specifically designed for dental students. Four problems to be studied towards the end of second year focus explicitly on fundamental oral issues.

In the latter two years of the program, the problems will continue to be presented, but will be centered on more complex dental issues. They will however often involve medically-compromised patients as encountered in daily community or hospital practice, in order to reinforce and apply earlier learning.

High level communication and technical skills are essential for successful dental practice. For each week of the first two years, students attend the Sydney Dental Hospital for a busy clinical day. They consider relevant basic dental issues in a case-based context and learn many specific dental skills in the laboratory, in simulation and in the clinics. As a crucial part of professional training, students are encouraged to assess their own progress and to evaluate the work of their peers. As students progressively demonstrate basic proficiency, they move to the dental clinics to apply their skills.

Towards the end of the first year, and at the end of the second year, students attend Westmead Hospital and the Westmead Centre for Oral Health, maintaining the pattern of problem-based learning. The hospital experience will offer particular opportunities for students to gain experience in medical as well as in dental settings. Medical skills, including those essential for dealing with emergencies, will be taught in the Clinical Skills Centre at Westmead Hospital.

Small interactive tutorials and clinical teams are featured throughout the program, ensuring that students participate effectively and learn actively. The group work prepares students for working in dental teams or multi-disciplinary groups in practice.

Throughout the program, a new emphasis is placed on evidence-based practice. Students will learn the relevant basic skills in the context of the first two years, then progressively apply the skills of evaluation to issues of diagnosis and management relating to individual patients in practice settings.

The development of information literacy is seen as a crucial part of the preparation for modern professional practice. Attention is specifically directed at the acquisition and management of information.

Students will use information technology throughout the program:

• in problem-based learning tutorials as the weekly case is introduced and supported by relevant data and learning resources
• in self-study for reviewing the resources (including text and images) provided by the faculty
• for recording data and maintaining a personal casebook of patient records
• for retrieving, evaluating and appraising literature and patient records
• for communication between students and staff
• for the analysis of laboratory data, and
• in classes for the study of images and other materials.

Students will become sophisticated users of the technology through well-designed educational interfaces.

Assessment

Assessment has been designed for students to meet the goals of the program. By emphasising support for learning, the assessment system ensures that students achieve an acceptable level of competence in all three themes. A key concern is to encourage students to develop their ability to evaluate their own progress and learning needs - both academic and clinical - in preparation for a life-time of learning in professional practice. The emphasis is thus on ongoing formative assessment that provides appropriate, sensitive and timely feedback to individuals and groups but does not determine progression.

Three formative written assessments in Years 1 and 2 provide opportunities for students to review the knowledge gained to date. Questions are set in the context of clinical presentations, medical and dental. The formats and types of questions are similar to those ultimately used summatively which determine progression. Participation in formative assessments is compulsory, but the results remain the property of the students themselves. Students are thus encouraged to evaluate their own performance and seek help as appropriate.

The precise timing, nature and scope of both summative or barrier assessments and formative assessments are made explicit to all students at the beginning of each year. Up-to-date information is presented on Blackboard.

Detailed information about assessment can be found in the Faculty of Dentistry Assessment and Progression Policy

Principles

Assessments have been designed so as to:

• satisfy the curriculum objectives
• assess within themes on the basis of criteria that are explicit to students and staff
• foster and support clinical reasoning, dental clinical and communication skills, team-work and self-directed learning
• emphasise formative assessment so that individuals and groups are provided with high quality, regular and timely feedback on their progress and thus integrate assessment with learning
• acknowledge the different academic backgrounds of students, allowing two years for the development of knowledge and understanding particularly in the Life Sciences theme
• certify that students are competent in a range of skills at critical points in the program, using instruments with which the students have become familiar
• explicitly define the criteria to be met in order to achieve a result of Satisfactory.

Organisation

The program is integrated and designed to develop students€™ knowledge, skills and professionalism progressively over four years. In order to achieve those aims, four themes have been identified.

• Life Sciences (LS)
• (Foundations of) Total Patient Care ((F)TPC)
• Personal and Professional Development (PPD)
• Dentist and the Community (D and C)

These four themes provide the framework for the objectives of the program (see below), the development of the curriculum, and for assessment. The integrated nature of the curriculum means that every week some aspects from all themes will be discussed in tutorials, presented in lectures or specific theme sessions, or encountered in dental clinics, laboratories or simulations.

Themes

In order to progress and to graduate, students must demonstrate satisfactory performance in all themes. Because of the integrated nature of the program and the associated process of learning, neither exemptions nor advanced standing can be offered.

Structure

The theme structure ensures that the students€™ knowledge and skills develop and build systematically over the four years in explicit domains. The relative contributions of the themes vary at different stages of the curriculum, with an initial focus on life sciences, early clinical experience and dental manipulative skills. Then follows a growing emphasis on clinical dental knowledge, skills and judgment as students manage individual patients in oral health care teams.

Students will progress educationally from lower order (reporting, describing) to higher order skills (analysing, evaluating and synthesising).

The program can be conceptualised as occurring in three broad phases:

• an introduction of 8 weeks – the foundation learning block that is preceded by an orientation week
• the body systems – the remainder of the first two years (62 weeks)
• dental clinical placements and rotations in a range of settings – the last two years.

Much of the first and second year materials are shared with the Sydney Medical School to provide an introduction for the dental students to basic and clinical sciences in a problem-based context. Most lectures and practicals on campus are offered to both groups, but specific sessions and practicals are designed specifically for the dental students. This strategy offers opportunities for educational innovations and collaborations by combining the skills and expertise of two health-related faculties.

Attendance at problem-based learning and clinical sessions is compulsory and attendance, participation , ethical and professional behaviour contribute to progressive assessment.

Curriculum blocks

The curriculum is arranged into blocks, following the organisational sequence of the program.

Learning

Problem-based learning

The problem-based tutorials are designed to develop the students€™ clinical reasoning abilities, to enhance their skills in working in groups and to introduce many relevant aspects of the content knowledge and skills within the three themes in an integrated fashion. Each week in Years 1 and 2, students are introduced to a clinical problem (usually relating to a particular patient) and the process of thinking through the problem provides the core of the week€™s activities. Tutors act as facilitators of the reasoning process rather than as subject experts. Three meetings are held each week to develop and discuss the problems.

In Years 3 and 4, the role of the tutor is less central. A web-based clinical reasoning model will guide students in the preparation of the problems.

Self-directed learning

During the first two years, students are helped to develop their skills in locating and acquiring information in textbooks, journals and on the web after defining the learning topics in the problem-based tutorials. By the time of entry into Year 3, students are expected to be increasingly independent in their capacity to direct their own learning and to locate essential information efficiently.

Theme sessions and lectures

Lectures provide a broader context for the students€™ formal learning and provide background understanding to assist in the resolution of the weekly problem. In Years 1 and 2, up to six lectures are held each week.

Sessions are offered within each theme and reading matter may be recommended for preparation beforehand. Life Sciences sessions in Years 1 and 2 usually offer opportunities to gain hands-on practical experience and to learn from images, models, slides and museum or dissected specimens. In Years 3 and 4, science updates, advanced seminars and sessions with dental images are utilised.

Sessions run by the Personal and Professional Development and Dentist and the Community themes are diverse, and include aspects of personal development, evidence-based practice, ethics and management issues, as well as the community perspective on oral health issues.

The activities organised by the Total Patient Care theme occur in the dental hospitals as described below.

Evidence-based practice

There is a major focus on the critical appraisal of evidence to underpin clinical decision-making throughout the program. From the start, students learn the skills of identifying and appraising the literature. In later years, they apply the skills learned in making clinical decisions to the diagnosis and management of individual patients with whom they interact.

Team approach to practice

The focus is on the comprehensive care of the patients, and on continuity of care. Students will be members of a dental team under the guidance of a staff member, and will treat patients assigned to them, according to the skills of the individual team members. They will be able to call on expert assistance as required. Although the core teams are based on third year students, more senior and also junior students may, from time to time, contribute. Case conferences and presentations to the team will be used to maintain an overview of patients under treatment.

Foundations of total patient care (FTPC)

Dental Competencies Years 1 and 2

The weekly program in the dental teaching hospitals introduces students to dental skills in laboratories and simulation settings as well as dental clinics on Thursdays (Year 1) and Tuesdays (Year 2). An emphasis on self-assessment will encourage the development of professional skills. Students will be helped to acquire sensitive and effective skills in communicating with patients, and to develop professional communication with colleagues and teachers. Students from the BOH course will join in some of these sessions.

There are opportunities to practice and to gain some medical experience with access to selected patients and to the skills laboratory when students are at Westmead Hospital.

Blocks 4 (Haematology, Year 1) and 9 (Cancer, Year 2) involve extensive activities at Westmead and Nepean Hospitals and the students will share lectures and sessions with medical students at the Western Clinical School. This arrangement allows students two sets of five weeks of 'immersion' in a general hospital setting, providing the opportunity for significant development in clinical skills, both medical and dental. PBL tutorials, lectures and theme sessions are all provided on site. Computer-based materials will continue to be available.

In addition, Block 8B €’ Oral Biosciences €’ will be taught at the Westmead Centre for Oral Health. Again, teaching sessions will be on site, except possibly when access is required to the simulators at the Sydney Dental Hospital.

Dental Compentencies Years 3 and 4

A structured teaching program is planned to extend throughout this part of the course. Each day in Year 3 will start with a theme-based session €’ occasional lectures, case presentations, theme-based seminars and discussions. In Year 4, formal teaching will be necessarily reduced as the students will be on at least two sites, videoconferencing can be used to link the two major sites. In BDent 4 the mandatory Extramural Community Practice Education Program (ECPEP) provides an opportunity for a month-long placement in a public dental clinic in a rural/regional location in NSW.

Honours

The Faculty of Dentistry, in recognition of meritorious performance, offers an Honours Program for BDent candidates. The Honours Program is a 12 credit point unit of study which is taken as an alternative to the Elective Program and each of these are integrated into the BDent program. The Honours Program comprises a significant research project however outstanding clinical achievement is also a requirement for the award.

An Honours Degree provides greater opportunities after graduation and will make you more competitive when seeking employment amongst graduates without Honours Degrees. Honours will reflect that you have developed research and analytical skills which are more advanced to those of pass degree candidates, and that you developed superior organisational and time management skills to complete the honours program simultaneously with the demands of the BDent program. Honours will also provide an advantage when applying for postgraduate study.

Principles of Honours

The principles underlying the approach to award of Honours in the BDent include the following:

All students should be encouraged to meet the Honours standard but eligibility for award of Honours requires a high level of clinical competence.

Honours will be awarded on the basis of successful completion of all assessments across the curriculum themes and an Honours project and Honours presentation that meets the required standard.

The Honours Program is subject to review by the Learning and Teaching Committee.

Participation in the Honours Program by an individual student is voluntary.

Eligibility for Honours

The table below lists the minimal requirements to be eligible to enter the Honours program. Detailed eligibility requirements are outlined in the Bachelor of Dentistry Honours Policy.

Completing the Honours Project

Students undertaking the Honours Program submit a research proposal approved by their chosen supervisor to the Honours Sub-committee by the end of March in their third year of study. Once approved, students can begin their project in BDent 3 for completion by the end of September in BDent 4.

The nature and specifications of the final report should take the form of a manuscript suitable for submission to a journal for publication. A standard journal format from a well-recognised journal may be used but the format of the Australian Dental Journal is recommended. Honours candidates will also present their Honours research project as either a poster or oral presentation at the Faculty of Dentistry Research Day. Students are also required to submit a minimum 3-page reflective essay on their Honours project.

Requirements for the Award of Honours

Dentistry conjoint studies

Selected students with a proven aptitude for research and an Honours degree (by research) are offered the opportunity to conjointly undertake their studies with a higher degree:

• Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) or
• Master of Philosophy in Public Health (MPhilPH) (by research).

The BDent and PhD conjoint studies program will normally take six or seven years, the BDent and MPhilPH conjoint studies program five years.

There are two methods of application for the admission of qualified applicants:

• at the time of application for admission to the BDent
• during the first two years of the BDent, by submission of a research proposal approved by a potential supervisor and application for admission.

Criteria for selection into the PhD program include eligibility for an Australian Postgraduate Award (or similar scholarship).

Note that students enrol in the two degrees seperately; they are not offered and awarded as a combined degree program. All candidates are expected to undertake their BDent studies full time and complete the other degree on a part time basis. It is expected that candidates for the PhD or MPH program will have made some progress towards the completion of the PhD or MPH program. The candidate also undertakes conjoint studies on the condition that their candidature in the BDent program will not be compromised by the workload expected in the PhD or MPH program. The candidate and his/her supervisor must be able to verify this at the time of admission to the BDent program.

Dentistry intercalated degree programs

Students who desire to obtain research experience may apply to interrupt their studies after second year to undertake a one-year degree:

Master of Philosophy by research

Applicants for the MPhil (Dent) will be required to satisfy a potential supervisor and the faculty that they have either obtained an honours degree (or equivalent) by research previously, or otherwise demonstrate their capacity by completing a relevant, short laboratory or library research project at an acceptable standard during the first two years of the program.

Master of Public Health (by coursework and dentally-related treatise)

The BDent/MSc (Dent) and MPH Intercalated Degree Programs will normally each take five years.

Resolutions

Units of study