The La Trobe Dental course

La Trobe describes the course as multi-modal: a mix of face-to-face classes, live online sessions and online work you do in your own time. A typical theory subject combines online lectures or videos with a weekly on-campus workshop or tutorial. Lab subjects are taught face to face, and the handbook expects 100 per cent attendance at every rostered lab and placement session.

In Years 2 and 3, each semester pairs a theory subject with a lab subject that practises the same skills. In Semester 1 of Year 2, for example, Scientific and Clinical Knowledge 2A covers the theory of X-rays, local anaesthesia and minimal intervention dentistry. That approach aims to prevent decay and remove as little tooth as possible. Alongside it, Preclinical Skills 2A has you take X-rays, give anaesthetic and place fillings in simulation. The handbook makes each pair corequisites, so you take them together.

Some subjects are shared with other La Trobe health courses. Research and Evidence in Practice in Year 1 and Integrating Evidence into Practice in Year 2 teach you to find and judge research, partly in teams with students from other professions. First Nations health runs through the course, from cultural awareness in Year 1 to culturally safe care in Year 2 and a face-to-face First Nations workshop in Year 4.

From Year 4 you are mostly on placement, so the theory moves online. In Year 4, Scientific and Clinical Knowledge 4A and 4B combine pre-recorded material with live online workshops on study days, plus face-to-face back-to-base workshops in Bendigo between the two placements. In Year 5, 5A and 5B are mostly self-paced online, with a face-to-face back-to-base intensive and a seminar. Across both years you work through complex cases in the specialties, from orthodontics, children's dentistry and special needs dentistry to oral surgery, implants and orofacial pain.

When the ADC visited in April 2026, staff and students said they preferred face-to-face learning. The ADC also heard that the school relies on part-time and casual clinical educators, that rosters change often to keep supervision safe, and that some pre-clinical sessions had been cancelled for lack of educators. It required evidence on educator staffing and training by 20 August 2026.

The handbook lists each subject's weekly classes, which gives a clear picture of Year 1. In Semester 1 the three dental subjects add up to about 11 hours on campus a week. That is three two-hour labs for Oral Health Practice, a two-hour Dental Science A workshop, and a one-hour tutorial plus a two-hour practical for Scientific and Clinical Knowledge A. About five hours of set online work comes on top.

Rural Community Engagement adds a two-hour workshop each week in the semester you take it. Semester 2 follows a similar pattern, with three two-hour labs, a weekly two-hour anatomy practical, online tutorials and microbiology workshops. Research and Evidence in Practice is taught fully online.

Placement weeks look different. Placement days are weekdays, and the hours depend on each health service's needs. A Year 4 placement subject fits 60 days into a block of about 20 weeks, roughly three clinic days a week on average, with online theory and your Honours project fitted around them.

Anatomy is taught in Year 1 and concentrates on the head, neck and teeth. Dental Science A, in Semester 1, gives the wider picture: how the body is organised, how cells work, and how the nervous and endocrine systems keep the body in balance. That is the base for understanding how general health and the mouth affect each other.

Scientific and Clinical Knowledge A, also in Semester 1, covers the anatomy of the head and face and, in detail, tooth morphology: the shape and structure of every tooth. You are assessed on identifying teeth and in a structured practical exam on the teeth, the mouth and histology, the study of tissues under the microscope.

Dental Science B, in Semester 2, covers the gross anatomy of the head and neck, the histology of the mouth and the embryology of how teeth form. Lectures are online, with weekly videos to watch before a two-hour practical on campus. Assessment includes a 25-minute flag test, where you name structures marked with tags, plus an exam and a test sat in pairs or small teams.

Disease comes later. General Medicine A in Year 2 covers what goes wrong in the major organ systems. Oral Pathology and Oral Medicine in Year 3 teaches you to tell healthy from diseased tissue in the mouth and to interpret the X-ray and histology findings used to diagnose mouth lesions.

Before you treat anyone, you spend two years building skills in simulation. Year 1 covers infection control, cavity preparation and fillings, and scaling, which means cleaning hardened deposits off teeth, first above the gum line and then below it. Year 2 adds dental X-rays, local anaesthetic, multi-surface fillings, children's fillings and extractions, and managing a medical emergency in a simulated clinic. You also practise your communication skills in a realistic simulated clinic.

Your first real patients come in Year 3 through Introduction to Clinical Practice, 30 placement days in the first half of the year. You learn the infection control and professional standards expected of a student clinician, take medical histories, carry out full oral examinations and write care plans for the patients assigned to you.

Clinical Dentistry 1 follows with 35 days in the second half of Year 3. You treat adults and children, prescribe and take X-rays, and complete year-level clinical tasks with little help from your educators. Keeping infection control and professionalism breaches to a minimum is what lets you move on to placements at other services.

Responsibility then grows. Year 4 placements add root canal treatment, dentures and surgical extractions, and introduce indirect restorations such as crowns, which are made outside the mouth and then fitted. In Year 5 you provide a full range of treatment and must show the competence and safety expected of a new dentist.

Each subject has three or four weighted tasks, and most include an early, lower-weighted one. Many also have a hurdle: a task you must pass to pass the subject, whatever your other marks. In the Year 1 and 2 lab subjects, a personal and professional behaviour competency is a hurdle worth no marks. Some major practical tasks, such as the Year 2 composite filling, are hurdles too.

Practical skills are tested by demonstration, from fillings and scaling to local anaesthetic, denture stages, root canal procedures and crown preparation. Preclinical Skills 3 in Year 3 includes an OSCE on advanced fillings and minor oral surgery.

Theory is tested through central exams with multiple-choice and short-answer questions, two-hour written papers, online tests built on case scenarios, case reports and group or individual presentations. Year 1 includes practical exams on teeth and anatomy, and in Year 2 you write a 2,250-word appraisal of a published clinical trial.

On placement, Introduction to Clinical Practice is assessed on professionalism and skills development, and on an e-portfolio with reflections; both are hurdles. From Clinical Dentistry 1 onwards each subject centres on a clinical skills demonstration, a hurdle worth 40 to 45 per cent, plus two-part assessments of professionalism and progress. Full attendance is a hurdle in Year 3. The handbook allows supplementary exams, an extra attempt after failing, only in the six clinical placement subjects.

The ADC's 2026 report described clinical assessment as evolving, with some difficulty tracking each student's readiness for specific procedures, particularly in Year 3. One condition asked La Trobe to show by 20 August 2026 how it monitors the range, volume and type of procedures each student does, so that everyone gets enough clinical experience.

Placements are compulsory and arranged by La Trobe; the handbook marks every clinical subject as university-sourced and regional. Across Years 3 to 5 the 2027 handbook sets 315 placement days: 30 and 35 days in Year 3, 60 and 60 in Year 4, and 55 and 75 in Year 5.

La Trobe's general health placements page gives different figures: about 264 days of patient care in Year 3 and 152 days across the last two years. It adds that, depending on the service, up to 152 days may be spent working as a dental assistant, and that you rotate through regional and metropolitan sites. The handbook's subject-by-subject figures are the more detailed, but ask the school which apply to your year.

La Trobe names four major teaching clinics, in Bendigo, Wodonga, Mildura and Melton, and says you attend all of them on a rotating basis. Smaller satellite clinics are added in the final year. Grampians Health in Ballarat is also a placement partner for many dentistry and oral health students.

In April 2026 the ADC called the range of placements a key strength but said capacity is a risk as larger year groups reach Years 3 to 5. All Year 3 placements were then with Bendigo Health, which has limited room to grow, and placements for future years were not yet all secured.

La Trobe must give the ADC a plan for 2028 placements in Years 3 and 4 by 30 October 2026, and signed agreements for them by 30 June 2027. By that same date it must show that student numbers match placement, dental chair and educator capacity, with a confirmed placement model for Years 3 to 5. The ADC is also checking student-to-educator ratios and placement capacity in teaching periods in 2026 and 2027, and wants a plan for Year 5 placements in 2029 by mid-2028.

Placements may mean travelling or relocating, with extra costs. La Trobe's Placement Travel Bursary helps with university-arranged placements at least 120 km one way from your term address and lasting 10 days or more. In 2026 it paid $680 for 10 to 15 days, $910 for 16 to 20 days or $1,365 for longer, once a year. Domestic Rural Health School students got $300 more for placements in rural or remote areas, rated 3 to 7 on the Modified Monash Model, the national scale of remoteness.

• A volunteer Working with Children Check, and a police check renewed every year.
• Immunisations, recorded on a health form signed by a doctor.
• A current First Aid and CPR certificate (HLTAID011).
• Child Safety and Wellbeing training and the Hand Hygiene for Dental Healthcare Workers online module.
• A signed Student Placement Deed and Student Undertaking form, and possibly a National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) worker screening check.
• Student registration with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra), which La Trobe arranges for you at no cost.

This is a set course: apart from your Honours stream, every subject is compulsory. Students in the Industry honours stream take 15 credit points of electives in Year 5 alongside their team project. La Trobe's dentistry page also says you may be eligible for its student exchange program.

Honours is part of the five-year course for everyone, so there is no separate intercalated year. In Semester 2 of Year 3 you start one of two streams and carry it through to the end of Year 5. La Trobe says the research route can lead on to a PhD and an academic career, or to specialist training such as orthodontics.

Research honours starts with Research Project Planning, where you write a 3,000-word proposal, pitch it in a five-minute talk of no more than four slides, and meet your supervisor about once a fortnight. In Year 4 you gain human ethics approval, recruit participants and begin collecting data. In Year 5 you analyse the results, present them in a 20-minute talk and write a journal-ready manuscript of up to 11,000 words.

Industry honours is a team project. In Project Planning and Preparation you learn project management and, with your team, write a 6,000-word project plan and a project charter. Through Years 4 and 5 your small group carries out an industry-relevant project with an academic or industry supervisor, ending in a 10,000-word team report and a group presentation.

A 2025 La Trobe news story describes one fourth-year student's research project with West Wimmera Health Service. She was working with local communities to identify barriers to good oral health and co-design practical ways to prevent disease.

Since August 2025 dental teaching has been based in La Trobe's $21 million Rural Dentistry and Oral Health Clinical School. It sits inside the Clinical Teaching Building on Arnold Street in central Bendigo, next to Bendigo Health. The labs moved there from La Trobe's Flora Hill campus, and the new space raises La Trobe's capacity to 150 new dentistry and oral health students a year.

The dental simulation laboratories have 82 manikin workstations with audiovisual support, used for gum and restorative skills. The simulated dental clinic has 16 fully equipped dental chairs and a clinical-grade sterilisation area; the ADC's 2026 report calls it a student-on-student clinic, a clinic where students practise on each other.

A prosthodontic and anatomy laboratory has 28 workstations, each with a laboratory handpiece and its own suction, for making dentures from impression to finished appliance. There is also a digital dentistry suite with intraoral scanners and 3D printers, a cone beam CT scanner (a 3D X-ray of the jaws) with panoramic imaging, and a telehealth training facility.

The ADC praised the new pre-clinical facilities in 2026. It also encouraged the school to make digital workflows, such as scanning, milling and advanced imaging, a priority in the curriculum, so that students get real exposure to the new equipment.

La Trobe gathers student feedback through surveys, drop-in sessions for each year group and student representatives on course advisory committees, and told the ADC in 2026 that it plans to add structured listening circles. The ADC also noted growing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participation, supported by the RISE Indigenous pathways program and other Rural Health School initiatives.

The course page sets out core participation requirements, the abilities you need for learning and placements. They include the fine motor control to give local anaesthetic injections, the eyesight to spot subtle changes in teeth and gums, and the strength to help patients with special needs into the dental chair. If any concern you, the Accessibility team or your course coordinator can discuss adjustments.

University-wide services include peer learning advisers and free counselling. Dental Practitioner Support, a national health and wellbeing service that runs around the clock, is also open to dental students.