University of Sydney Handbooks - 2020 Archive

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Oral Health

Bachelor of Oral Health

Overview

The Bachelor of Oral Health (BOH) degree course is a five days a week, full-time three-year professional program designed to provide education at a university level so that graduates may register as oral health therapists, dental hygienists and/or dental therapists.

The program equips students with the required skills, knowledge and experience to deliver oral health education and promotion, dental hygiene and dental therapy services to patients in NSW, as well as throughout Australia and New Zealand. The program combines a firm scientific basis with extensive skills and professional development to produce graduates who are equipped to deal with the full range of treatments that dental hygienists and dental therapists may offer in the environment within which they work.

The course is structured so that students acquire a solid science foundation in parallel with early contact with patients, and the level and amount of patient contact increases as their scientific skills and oral health competencies grow. The emphasis of the course is on prevention and health maintenance in the context of primary health care.

Clinical practice largely occurs in the teaching hospitals where a team approach to patient care is practiced together with dentistry students. In their final year students have a two-week placement in Semester 1 in an area health service or community agency applying their health promotion skills. Second and third year students provide patient services in community clinics in the greater Sydney metropolitan regions.

Further information

For further information visit Sydney Dental School