The UQ Dental course

At UQ, a degree is called a program and its subjects are called courses. Each year of the BDSc(Hons) is 16 units, and every course is compulsory, so your whole year follows the same plan.

The dental courses use case-based learning, where a patient case is the starting point for what you learn. Dental Science I is built around clinical cases, and from Year 1 you meet virtual patients: case stories that show how the science links to diagnosis and treatment. Year 2 has weekly workshops on virtual patient cases, and the population oral health courses in Years 3 and 4 use a series of them.

In Years 3 and 4, each semester pairs a Dental Practice course, covering general dentistry for adults, with a Dental Disciplines course covering specialist areas. These include prosthodontics (dentures, crowns and bridges), endodontics (root canal treatment) and orthodontics (straightening teeth). Clinic time sits beside lectures, case-based clinical coaching, problem-based learning (small groups working through a problem) and simulation, with online UQ Extend modules in between.

By Year 5 almost all learning is clinical. Teaching shifts to online sessions on choosing and planning your cases, weekly structured self-reflection, and periodic audits of your work by the course coordinator.

In first semester of 2026, Dental Science I meant a two-hour lecture and a three-hour workshop each week at Herston, and Dental Practice IA added pre-clinic and, from week 2, peer clinic sessions. Introductory Cellular Physiology at St Lucia had three lectures and a workshop most weeks, plus four three-hour practicals across the semester.

The M2 bus route loops between St Lucia, the city, QUT Kelvin Grove and the Oral Health Centre in about 35 to 40 minutes. The 2026 pre-commencement guide asked first-years to pick St Lucia classes that did not clash with their dental ones.

From Year 3 your week centres on clinic. In first semester of 2026 Year 3 had six hours of direct patient care in Dental Practice IIIA and about three hours of clinic in Dental Disciplines A, plus lectures, workshops and simulation. Each course also expects about three hours of self-directed study a week.

Year 4 lifts this to about 15 hours of clinical care a week in first semester: six in general practice and around nine in the specialist disciplines. Clinic sessions start at 8:00am and 12:45pm, and you must leave the clinic by 4:45pm. In 2026, Year 5 was generally four days a week on placement, with about one day a week kept for your research project.

Anatomy starts in Year 1. Dental Science I covers the anatomy and histology (tissue structure under the microscope) of the mouth and nearby structures, and how teeth develop and erupt. Integrated Anatomy and Physiology at St Lucia covers body systems such as the nervous system, lungs, circulation and digestion. Introductory Cellular Physiology uses animal specimens in its practicals.

The main course is Head and Neck Anatomy for Dentistry, in second semester of Year 2. It examines head and neck structures through gross anatomy, the microscope and imaging, with a focus on what matters in general dental practice, such as giving local anaesthetic and doing surgery. In 2026 it had weekly lectures and workshops that mixed group activities with digital anatomy.

In weeks 6 to 12 of the 2026 course, compulsory practicals took place in the Gross Anatomy Facility at St Lucia, using bodies donated to the university. Before your first session you complete online training on the code of conduct for donated tissue and attend an induction. Queensland law requires respectful conduct, and phones and cameras are not allowed in the facility.

Assessment in 2026 was an in-semester exam (30%), a spotter exam in the Gross Anatomy Facility (30%) and a must-pass end-of-semester exam (40%). In the spotter exam you move between labelled models or specimens, with 60 seconds at each station.

You work in clinical spaces from first year, but you do not treat members of the public until Year 3. UQ counts any time in a clinic as clinical placement, so even in Years 1 and 2 you meet pre-placement rules, such as an immunisation record, and follow the clinic dress code.

Years 1 and 2 use the simulation clinic and peer clinics, where you practise on each other under a dentist's supervision. In Year 2 of 2026 you also spent two 90-minute sessions watching Year 3 students treat patients in the removable prosthodontics (dentures) clinic. The 2026 pre-commencement guide and an older School page say clinical work starts in mid second year. In the 2026 course profiles, that means these peer clinics and observation sessions; your own patients come in Year 3.

In Year 3 you take on your own patients at the Oral Health Centre, mainly adults and adolescents needing general care. You examine, diagnose and plan their care before treating them yourself. The specialist course adds clinic time with denture patients, plus assisting and observing.

Responsibility then grows. Year 4 moves to adults with moderately complex needs, medically compromised patients and children, with some experience of patients with special needs. Final year expects you to give comprehensive care at the level needed for independent general practice.

UQ grades courses on a 7-point scale and uses hurdles: assessments you must pass to pass the course, whatever your other marks. Most dental courses combine an in-semester exam, practical or competency tests and a must-pass end-of-semester exam. Many written exams are digital and invigilated, and some in-semester exams are held on Saturdays.

Clinical work is judged across each semester. Each clinical course has an interim review of your clinical practice performance, which is formative (feedback only), and a final review that is a must-pass hurdle. In every year the final review cannot be resat or replaced by a supplementary assessment, because it measures skills built over the whole semester (2026 course profiles).

Practical skills are tested in pre-clinical competency assessments, such as a resin restoration or a molar root canal treatment on a model. In some courses a failed hurdle competency can be resat once, with the result capped at a pass. OSCEs appeared in the 2026 profiles for Years 1, 2 and 5.

Progression is strict. You can enrol in the next semester only if you have passed every course in the one before. A grade of 3, which is a fail, may qualify you for a supplementary assessment, where the best grade you can get is a 4, a pass.

Your class of honours, from Class I to Class III, is worked out from your grade point average (GPA) on first attempts at all graded courses in Years 2 to 5. In its 2023 review, the ADC noted that external examiners take part in the final-year viva voce examinations.

• Attendance: 100% is expected. You must attend at least 90% of clinical sessions, rising to 95% in your last two semesters, and at least 90% of pre-clinic, peer clinic and compulsory workshop sessions.
• Missing too many clinical sessions means an incomplete or supplementary grade and an extra week of clinic in the semester break, or a fail below 70% (75% in your last two semesters).
• Logbooks: from Year 3 you log each clinical session as an operator, signed off by your supervising dentist, as a record of the volume and types of treatment you have done.

Most of your clinical training happens in one building. In its 2023 review, the ADC recorded that pre-clinical and clinical training up to the end of Year 4 takes place entirely at the Oral Health Centre. Its patient clinics are run by Metro North Oral Health Services, part of Metro North Hospital and Health Service, under the Oral Health Alliance with UQ.

In 2023 the ADC recommended more exposure to the financial side of treating privately funded patients, while accepting that access to private patients may be hard to arrange. The School now also runs the UQ Herston Dental Clinic, a fee-charging teaching clinic on Level 2 of the Oral Health Centre where dental students treat patients under supervision.

Final year takes you further afield. Year 5 clinics can include Queensland Health clinics run by Hospital and Health Services (the regional bodies that run public health care), Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health services and the Oral Health Centre. The 2026 pre-commencement guide says one of your two final-year placements is outside the Oral Health Centre.

Placements may be outside the Brisbane metropolitan area, and you pay your own travel, accommodation and daily living costs. UQ's placement pages tell dental students to ask their Placement Manager, as school accommodation may be available. Before a Queensland Health placement you also complete extra paperwork, including a Student Deed Poll for each Hospital and Health Service you attend.

There are no electives. Every course in the BDSc(Hons) is compulsory. Your choices come within courses, such as the area of your Year 4 research project or the underserved group for your Year 3 health promotion work.

Outside the timetable, UQ's Summer and Winter Research Program lets students who have finished at least one year join a research project with academic staff. The 2027 summer round runs from 11 January to 19 February. School of Dentistry projects include oral health in aged care and cutting sugar intake to prevent tooth decay in young children.

The UQ Dental Students' Association lists domestic and international volunteering opportunities with outside providers, along with academic seminars by practitioners and first aid and CPR courses.

Honours is part of the five-year degree, not an extra year, so there is no intercalated year (a year out to earn an extra degree) to apply for.

In final year your team of three spends about one day a week on the project, fitted around placements. In 2026 the course was assessed by an analytical plan (20%), a team research report written to the standard of a peer-reviewed journal (40%), and an individual oral presentation (40%) that you must pass.

If you leave the course after passing the Year 1 to 3 courses (48 units), you can apply to be awarded a Bachelor of Oral Bioscience instead.

The UQ Oral Health Centre at Herston opened in January 2015. It has more than 150 dental chairs across 11 clinics, two general anaesthetic theatres, two clinical simulation laboratories, two auditoriums, a seminar room complex and research laboratories. It sits across the road from the Herston busway station.

The two pre-clinical teaching labs seat 161. Each workstation has a manikin head with a moveable jaw, dental suction, handpieces and water. The labs also hold surgical microscopes, intra-oral X-ray units, intra-oral scanning and CAD-CAM (computer-aided design and manufacture) equipment and a plaster lab, backed by a technical lab with 3D printers.

Students get lockers on Level 3 of the Oral Health Centre, and the nearest library is the Herston Health Sciences Library at the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital. Scrubs are the uniform in the centre's clinics and labs. The School highly recommends loupes, magnifying glasses worn for close work, at a suggested 2.5 times magnification, once you have done formal training; you buy them yourself.

New students can join the Dentistry Peer Mentoring Program, set up as a student-staff partnership. You join a small group led by one or two senior dentistry students, who run catch-ups on and off campus and help with settling in, study and preparing for placements. You can pick a mentor by things like age, gender identity, being a Brisbane local or having moved for study.

The School's Student and Academic Services team, on Level 7 of the Oral Health Centre, handles enrolment, absences and other administration. The BDSc(Hons) has its own Program Convenor, and student representatives take issues to School committees. For a problem with a course, your first contact is the course coordinator.

The UQ Dental Students' Association runs social, academic and sporting events, and membership of the Australian Dental Students Association is free. If you have a disability, illness or mental health condition, a UQ adviser can set up a Student Access Plan with adjustments. UQ's inherent requirements for dentistry set out the core skills the course demands.

The faculty's Placement Ready team helps you meet pre-placement rules. For 2027 Year 1 students the immunisation record is due by 8 February 2027. Before Year 3 you add a blue card (Queensland's Working with Children Check), a National Police Certificate (a criminal history check), the faculty's one-off placement preparation module and Queensland Health orientation modules. You also need current first aid and CPR certificates. For students entering Year 3 in 2027, all of these are due by 18 December 2026.