Further Information

1. Delivery of the program
2. Outline of the curriculum
3. Learning
4. Assessment
5. Foundations of Total Patient Care (FTPC)
6. Honours

Delivery of the Program

Learning in years 1 and 2 of the program is integrated across dental and medical disciplines and between years; understanding and knowledge are built progressively in a relevant context.

Each week of learning is based on the presentation of a clinical problem which students address cooperatively in small groups. 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 practise. 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 lifelong learning.

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 centred 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.

Outline of the curriculum

The program is integrated and designed to develop student 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, 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.

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.

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

Learning

(1) 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.

(2) 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.

(3) 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.

(4) 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.

(5) 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.

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

Foundations of Total Patient Care (FTPC)

(1) 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 7, 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.

(2) 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

(1) 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.

(2) 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.

(3) Requirements for the Award of Honours