The JCU Dental course

The course runs in three stages: two years of science and simulation, two years of supervised clinical dentistry, and a final year on placement. JCU counts 24 credit points as a full-time year, and each year of the BDS carries exactly that.

In Year 1 you start the simulation clinic alongside the sciences, with safe working practices, infection control, ergonomics and exercises to build your fine motor skills. Year 2 combines theory and practical training, adding local anaesthesia and the medical care of patients.

From Year 3, the dental subjects are classed as work-integrated learning, JCU's term for supervised practice in a real workplace. Each pairs a clinical program in the JCU Dental clinic with taught content, tests and exams. Simulation does not stop: in 2026 some of Year 3's clinical skills weeks, in July and November, mixed clinic and simulation.

Evidence and research run through the course, from Health Professional Research 1 in Year 2 to the Year 4 group project. In Year 5 you reflect in writing on your progress against the ADC's professional competencies, which set out what a newly qualified dentist must be able to do.

The 2026 placement calendar shows how your week changes over the five years. Year 1 has no clinic or placement blocks: its column shows only a lecture recess each semester, exam periods in June and November, and supplementary exam weeks.

In Year 2, the first semester adds the Health Promotion community placement, at 2 hours a week for four weeks. In the second semester, the 2026 calendar gave Simulated Clinical Dentistry 2 clinical experience at the JCU Dental clinic: five 3-hour sessions, attended in alternate-week group rotations.

In Years 3 and 4 you are in the JCU Dental clinic for 15 hours a week through most of each semester. Both years start before the main university year. In 2026, Year 3 began with clinical foundation weeks on 9 February, while Year 4 began on 19 January with a research week, followed by two 30-hour clinic weeks. Both years also had clinical weeks in July, before the second-semester clinic weeks began in August.

Year 5 is close to a full-time job: in 2026 each rotation week was 32 hours at the placement site.

Anatomy is taught inside the dental subjects, not as a separate subject. In Year 1, Dental Science 1 covers the structure and function of the body, including the musculoskeletal system, as it relates to dentistry, along with the teeth, hard and soft tissues of the mouth. Dental Science 2 adds how the baby and adult teeth develop, their shape, and when and in what order they come through.

Head and neck anatomy is a major focus of Simulated Clinical Dentistry 2, in the second semester of Year 2. It is taught from a clinical and diagnostic point of view, with a review of the nervous system and the anatomy you need to give local anaesthetic safely. JCU's 2019 description of the dental teaching building at Smithfield lists science and anatomy laboratories.

Before you take part in any clinical session, you complete pre-placement requirements; for Year 1 students in 2027, most are due by 19 May. They include a Queensland Blue Card (the Working with Children Check), a national police check, and first aid and CPR certificates. You also need tuberculosis screening, a health and immunisation record, an exposure prone procedure form and hand hygiene training.

The immunisations required for dentistry are hepatitis B, measles, mumps and rubella, chickenpox and whooping cough. Your CPR certificate must be renewed each year, and Years 2 to 4 also complete fire safety training for the Cairns JCU Dental clinic. The handbook warns that a student who contracts a blood-borne viral disease cannot complete placements, and so cannot complete the course.

Under the 2027 subject prerequisites, you reach patient care only after passing every Year 1 and 2 subject. The last of them, Simulated Clinical Dentistry 2, teaches you to take medical and dental histories and obtain informed consent. You must also show enough understanding of dental radiography to be eligible to apply for a radiography licence.

Year 3 is when you start treating patients yourself, beginning with routine care such as examinations, fillings, extractions and scaling. You need a thorough grasp of cross-infection rules and basic life support first.

Responsibility then widens. In the second half of Year 3 you give comprehensive care under supervision, including children's dentistry and introductions to orthodontics, oral surgery and periodontology (the treatment of gum disease). Year 4 adds older patients, oral medicine and patients with special needs.

Assessment mixes written exams, practical exams and judgements of your clinical work. In Years 1 to 4, each dental subject has an end-of-semester written exam worth 30 to 50% of the mark, plus on-course quizzes, tests and presentations. Practical skills are tested in multi-station assessment tasks in Years 1 and 2, and in OSCEs from the second semester of Year 1 to Year 4.

Hurdles include the simulation competencies, the Year 3 OSCE in Introduction to Clinical Dentistry and the Year 5 placement performance. Every dental subject also requires satisfactory attendance at clinical sessions and a satisfactory academic and professional standard under the College's assessment guidelines.

Clinical work is marked as you go. In Years 3 and 4, assessment of your patient encounters or placement performance carries 20 to 30% of each clinical subject. Year 5 has no written exam: it is assessed through two vivas, case reports and reflective writing.

Progression is sequential. In the 2027 handbook, each year's dental subjects require the previous year's subjects. This means you finish all of Years 1 and 2 before Year 3, all of Year 3 before Year 4, and all of Year 4 before Year 5. The 2026 calendar set aside supplementary exam weeks in the mid-year break and in December, and clinical remediation weeks after the June and November exams in Years 3 and 4.

If you withdraw or cannot meet the progression rules, you may be eligible for a lesser award, depending on how far you got. The options are a Diploma of Tertiary Studies after 24 credit points, an Associate Degree of Health Sciences after 48, or a Bachelor of Life Sciences after 72.

• In the 2026 calendar, OSCEs were held in the November exam period for Years 1 and 2 and in the June exam period for Years 3 and 4.
• The weights above are from the 2027 handbook. Later years of your course will follow later handbooks, and weights can change between editions.

Teaching in Years 1 to 4 is at the Smithfield campus, and the 2026 calendar places Year 2 to 4 clinic sessions at the JCU Dental clinic there. JCU's course and application pages say your supervised placements take in private practices as well as rural and remote community health facilities across northern Queensland.

Year 5 rotations are listed in the 2026 calendar only as various locations. In 2021 the Head of Dentistry described them as placements with public dental services in regional and remote Queensland and in Tasmania. The current placement checklist asks Year 5 students to meet Queensland Health requirements, complete mask fit testing for hospital placements and meet interstate placement requirements, each as advised. JCU holds a current Student Placement Deed with Queensland Health, which placements in its facilities require.

JCU's student stories show where rotations have been. Stories from 2022 and 2024 describe final-year placement sites across Queensland, the Northern Territory and Tasmania. The areas listed below are the sites named in stories published from 2021 to 2023 and in one undated story. These are past examples, not a current site list.

The stories also show what rotations involve. In 2021, the only dental student at Ingham saw many emergency toothache and facial swelling patients, and lived in JCU accommodation on the hospital grounds with medical students. At Innisfail she did many extractions and dentures and joined general anaesthetic sessions. In Mount Isa in 2022, a student worked with the North West Hospital and Health Service dental team and did outreach in Cloncurry. A 2022 story describes her listing Mount Isa as her first preference among placement sites.

JCU's placement page lists its own placement scholarships and bursaries, including versions for Indigenous students. It also links to the National Association of Field Experience Administrators (NAFEA), a national body for university staff who organise student placements. NAFEA's equity scholarships give up to $2,000 towards travel and accommodation for a rural or remote placement, awarded competitively to students facing financial hardship.

There are no electives or selectives: all 16 subjects are core.

The Head of Dentistry's statement on the current course page mentions the opportunity of an international placement at the end of the course. A JCU article published in 2019 describes the first JCU dentistry trip to the Solomon Islands, which took place before 2018, when final-year students worked alongside local oral health teams. Overseas placements go through JCU's approval and travel registration process, which must be completed at least six weeks before you leave.

In September 2025, eight JCU dentistry students and four staff ran oral health workshops as part of JCU's remote outreach initiative. They visited Lakeland State School, Hope Vale State School and the Cooktown Community Centre. The students gave out more than 250 oral health kits, advised a seniors group on denture care and toured the Cooktown hospital and dental clinic.

A 2021 JCU story describes a 2020 graduate who, during her studies, completed oral health promotion programs in primary schools, aged care homes and the remote community of Yarrabah.

Honours is optional and comes as a separate end-on degree, the Bachelor of Dental Surgery (Honours), BDS(Hons). It is 24 credit points, a year of full-time study, built around a research project in a dental discipline approved by the Honours coordinator. In the 2027 handbook, the thesis and research performance carry 70%, entry and exit seminars 20%, and a literature review 10%.

There are two routes. Full time, you start within five years of finishing a BDS at JCU or another university. Part time, you can start once you have completed Year 4 at JCU and study it alongside Year 5, across four 6-credit-point subjects; you must finish the BDS before the Honours degree is awarded.

In the 2027 handbook, entry needs the College Dean's approval. If you have finished the BDS, you need a credit average (a grade point average, or GPA, of 5.0) across the whole degree. To take Honours part time alongside Year 5, you need a credit average in each of Years 2, 3 and 4. Places may be capped. In 2022, one recent graduate was doing his Honours project, on injuries to the mouth, jaws and face in regional Australia, while working at JCU as a graduate dental practitioner.

JCU's 2019 description of the dentistry teaching building at Smithfield lists an 80-chair dental simulation laboratory, facilities for prosthodontics (dentures, crowns and bridges), and science and anatomy laboratories. JCU's inherent requirements say you must be bare below the elbows in all clinical settings, including the simulation clinic.

The JCU Dental clinic is in Building D2 on the same campus. It opened in February 2012, funded by a $22 million grant, and runs on weekdays during semester. It offers comprehensive dental care, emergency care for existing patients and some specialist procedures referred by local practitioners.

JCU Dental's second clinic is on the Townsville campus at Douglas, on Level 2 of the Clinical Practice Building. It opened in January 2014 with 18 chairs, funded by a $10 million grant. When it opened, JCU described patients being referred between it and the university's allied health clinics in the same building.

In 2021 the Head of Dentistry described coordinators looking after each year of the course. He said a main part of the Year 5 coordinator's job is fostering the relationship between students on placement and their placement supervisors.

In 2022, students on placement in Mount Isa were supported by JCU's Murtupuni Centre for Remote and Rural Health, whose staff listened to their concerns and lent them camping gear to explore the region.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander dentistry students can get academic and pastoral support from JCU's Indigenous Education and Research Centre (IERC), including its peer tutoring program, alongside support from the College throughout the degree.

A 2022 first-year story describes the JCU Dental Students' Association running events where you meet your own year and other dentistry students. JCU's Student Mentor Program pairs new students with trained mentors from the same course. Dental Practitioner Support, a national health and wellbeing service open around the clock, covers dental students as well as practitioners.