The Charles Sturt Dental course

Each subject has its own lectures, tutorials and practical classes, and its own assessment. Charles Sturt calls its semesters sessions, and many dental subjects run across the whole year. The university expects 10 to 12 hours of work a week for every 8-credit-point subject, so four subjects a session equals a full-time job. Some subjects may include an intensive school, a block of on-campus or online lectures and practicals.

Science and clinical work run in parallel. Year 1 pairs anatomy, physiology, chemistry and microbiology with tooth anatomy and a year-long subject in the simulation clinic and laboratory. In Year 2 you study biochemistry, pathology and head and neck anatomy while learning fillings in simulation and starting in the clinic. By Year 4 the science is applied directly, in subjects on medicine for dental patients and on oral surgery.

Practical skills are taught through what the 2027 endodontics (root canal treatment) subject calls a mastery learning approach. In the 2026 subject descriptions, staff demonstrate a procedure and show the standard expected, and you repeat it until your work reaches that standard, with feedback each time. Simulation and laboratory portfolios are marked satisfactory or unsatisfactory rather than given a grade.

Teaching becomes more independent towards the end. Year 4's medicine subject is mostly assessed through group case-based learning exercises, worth 60% of the mark. In Year 5, while on placement, you take Advanced Clinical Options, a largely self-directed subject in which you search and critically review the research literature on assigned topics.

Each year of the course carries 60 to 68 credit points, so the load is full time throughout. Clinic and laboratory time is fixed in the timetable: in Year 2, clinic sessions run 6 hours a week for 12 weeks.

In Year 3 you spend 12 hours a week in the Orange clinics and 3 hours in the dental technology laboratory, each for 24 weeks, on top of lectures and simulation work. In Year 5 the week is mostly placement: 7-hour days, four days a week.

Anatomy runs through the first two years. In Year 1, Human Anatomy and Physiology 1 and 2 cover the whole body, from cells and tissues through the nervous, skeletal and muscular systems to the heart, lungs, kidneys, gut and reproductive system. These subjects are shared with other courses and taught at several Charles Sturt campuses; you take them at Orange.

Oral Anatomy and Histology, a year-long Year 1 subject, focuses on the mouth. It covers the shape of every tooth, the microscopic structure of dental tissues, how teeth form and erupt, the lining of the mouth, the salivary glands and the jaw joint. Its tooth anatomy portfolio is a hurdle, because it tests foundational skills that underpin patient safety.

Head and Neck Anatomy follows in Session 2 of Year 2. You study the skull, muscles, blood vessels and nerves of the head and neck, how they develop and how they look on X-rays. There is a special focus on the anatomy behind minor oral surgery and giving local anaesthetic injections.

Head and Neck Anatomy has two assessments, each a hurdle worth 50%. One is an OSPE (Objective Structured Practical Examination): you move between stations identifying structures and how they relate, using anatomical teaching materials in the Anatomy Laboratory and radiographs. The other is a written exam of short-answer questions.

Before you treat anyone, Charles Sturt registers you as a student with the Dental Board of Australia, at no cost to you. By 30 April of first year you must also meet NSW Health and university requirements. They include a national police check, the NSW Health Code of Conduct and vaccinations, including a yearly flu shot. You also need first aid with CPR, a Working with Children Check, a uniform and a placement ID card.

Year 1 is all simulation and laboratory work. Foundations of Dental Clinical Practice 1 teaches infection control, dental materials, X-ray technique, record keeping and history taking, and tests your manual dexterity and spatial sense. Its laboratory portfolio, simulation practical exam and simulation portfolio are hurdles you must pass to start the clinical years in Year 2.

Year 2's Foundations of Dental Clinical Practice 2 adds 72 hours of clinic sessions. You learn to carry out a full oral examination, diagnose simple conditions and manage simple fillings and gum treatment. In 2026, students first had to pass checks on the periodontal (gum) probe, scalers and curettes in the simulation clinic, and a clinical dental examination assessment, before examining patients in Session 2.

Responsibility then builds year by year. In Year 3 you give local anaesthetic, relieve pain and provide simple gum, filling, root canal and denture treatment. In 2026, students first had to pass a local anaesthesia OSCE (Objective Structured Clinical Examination: short timed stations, each testing one skill) before injecting patients under supervision. Year 4 moves to complex care across several disciplines, and in Year 5 supervisors in 2026 judged progress against the ADC's competencies for a newly qualified dentist.

Clinical dentistry is physically demanding, and Charles Sturt sets out what it needs in the course's inherent requirements, approved in June 2025. They include fine hand control for precise instrument work, eyesight sharp enough for very fine detail, and the stamina to hold a working posture through long, back-to-back patient appointments with few breaks. Reasonable adjustments may be possible if they do not change the requirement.

Each subject is graded on Charles Sturt's high distinction to fail scale, and you generally need an aggregate of at least 50% to pass. Many subjects also contain hurdles that must be passed in their own right. The handbook links most of them to patient safety and the ADC's accreditation standards, which require students to reach the relevant competencies before treating patients.

Written exams mix multiple-choice and short-answer questions; in 2026 some were built on X-rays, photographs and diagrams. Practical skills are tested in simulation exams and in OSCEs, which appear in restorative dentistry, oral surgery, oral pathology, prosthodontics and general dental practice.

Simulation, laboratory and clinical work is mostly judged satisfactory or unsatisfactory, through portfolios and continuous assessment by supervisors. From Year 3 you also present patients you have treated: a case presentation and defence in Year 3, a case report and defence in Year 4, and a case presentation in Year 5.

Completing the course is what makes you eligible to register. Graduates of ADC-accredited courses approved by the Dental Board of Australia can apply through the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra), up to 90 days before they expect to finish. Unlike pharmacy and psychology graduates, dentists have no extra supervised-practice step listed before registration.

The 2027 handbook lists each subject's tasks and weights. The formats below come from the 2026 subject entries, the version current students follow, and may change.

• Year 3 OSCE (2026): 8 stations of 10 minutes, using clinical images, materials and scenarios.
• Year 3 case defence (2026): a recorded 12-minute presentation on one of your patients, then 15 minutes of questions from examiners.
• Year 4 case report (2026): up to 5,000 words on a patient needing care in two or more disciplines, followed by a 30-minute online defence that includes two unseen photographs or X-rays.
• Year 4 OSCE (2026): 5 stations of 7 minutes, with no going back to earlier stations.
• Year 4 clinic (2026): students had to reach a set minimum level of clinical experience. Anyone who fell short completed equivalent advanced case-based simulation tasks in the clinic, during appointments where patients did not turn up.
• Year 5 (2026): a recorded 12-minute case presentation with a 20-minute online defence, and a log of at least 20 hours of online continuing professional development.

Work-integrated learning, Charles Sturt's term for supervised practice in real workplaces, is built into five subjects. The 2027 handbook gives 72 clinic hours in Year 2, then 72 laboratory hours and 288 clinic hours in Year 3. Year 4 has 288 clinic hours in the handbook (the faculty's work-integrated learning page lists 345 hours for this subject), and Year 5 has 1,008 hours.

Year 3 clinic hours are at the Orange campus clinics. Year 4 clinic is timetabled weekly at either the Orange or the Bathurst clinic, so you may need to travel to Bathurst. Placements are allocated through InPlace, the university's placement system, which also tells you of any extra requirements a site has.

In Year 5, each 12-week placement is at one of the Charles Sturt clinics in Dubbo, Bathurst, Wagga Wagga or Albury, or at an external site. At least one of the three is meant to be external, depending on availability. External sites may include Aboriginal Medical Services or dental clinics run by a local health district, one of the bodies that run NSW public health services.

You pay your own placement travel, accommodation and resources. Three Rivers Department of Rural Health (Three Rivers DRH), a Charles Sturt rural health program, supports eligible students in Commonwealth supported (government-subsidised) places who are Australian or New Zealand citizens or permanent residents. Its help covers placements with external providers only; time in Charles Sturt's own dental clinics is excluded.

For 2027 placements, its subsidised rooms cost $85 a week on campus or $50 a week off campus, for stays of at least two weeks. Its Placement Grant pays $200 a week for the first five weeks, then $100 a week up to $3,000, if you travel 80 km or more each way. You can receive one or the other for a placement, and both are reviewed each year.

There are no elective subjects. All 25 subjects in the 320-credit-point course are compulsory, and everyone follows the same study plan. The literature topics in Year 5's Advanced Clinical Options change from year to year, but they are assigned rather than chosen.

Towards the end of the course you can apply for a short study tour to Cambodia or another destination.

The five-year course has no Honours or research year built into it.

After graduating you can apply for Charles Sturt's Bachelor of Science (Honours), a separate add-on degree that the School of Dentistry and Medical Sciences lists as open to Bachelor of Dental Science graduates. It takes one year full time or two part time, carries 64 credit points and is studied online, built around a supervised research project written up as a dissertation or journal article. Dentistry is one of its specialisations, and entry is selective.

Dental teaching at Orange is concentrated in Building 1006. The faculty's facility list places the simulation clinic, an open clinic and closed clinics (open-plan and enclosed treatment areas), the dental technology laboratory and the anatomy rooms there. The course page also lists a biodental science learning suite.

When the building opened in 2009, Charles Sturt described a 24-chair clinic on the ground floor, a 60-place simulation clinic and a 32-place dental technology laboratory, with anatomy teaching on the top floor.

The other four Dental and Oral Health Clinics are on the Albury (Thurgoona), Bathurst, Dubbo and Wagga Wagga campuses, open on weekdays from 9am to 4.30pm. The Wagga Wagga site also has open and closed clinics and a dental technology laboratory.

Orange is the university's health campus, shared with students in medicine, pharmacy and physiotherapy. It has on-campus residences, and the campus page lists a guaranteed room for first-year students.

The Faculty of Science and Health's Workplace Learning Team is the contact for placement questions. Three Rivers DRH, besides its accommodation and grants, runs online learning modules and the Charles Sturt Student Rural Health Club.

On campus, the Dental Students Association is one of the Orange clubs. The university's wider services include study support, counselling, accessibility services and First Nations Student Connect.

In 2021 the ADC found students well supported pastorally but raised staffing turnover and cancelled clinic sessions; the conditions it set were recorded as met by October 2022.