The UQ Doctor of Dental Medicine course

Year 1 runs two strands side by side. The science subjects cover the cells and organ systems behind oral health, head and neck anatomy, microbiology and immunology, and an introduction to the dental specialties. The clinical foundation subjects cover infection control, examination, prevention and simple fillings, and are designed to connect that science to clinical work.

From the Year 2 summer semester until the placements, each semester is built around a pair of clinical subjects. The Clinical Dentistry subjects develop general practice care for adults, from prevention and gum treatment to fillings, extractions and care planning for patients with more complex needs. The Advanced Clinical Dentistry subjects cover the specialist disciplines, such as endodontics (root canal treatment), prosthodontics (crowns and dentures), orthodontics (straightening teeth), and paediatric and implant dentistry. On placement, learning comes from treating allocated patients, supported by recorded online sessions on choosing and planning cases.

Two smaller strands run alongside. Population Oral Health and Professional Dental Practice, in Year 2, cover public health, cultural safety, ethics, law and regulation. Interprofessional modules in Years 1 and 2 put you in small teams with other health students. In Year 1 these come from audiology, dietetics, nursing, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, psychology, social work and speech pathology. In 2025 the ADC noted that interprofessional practice is taught as modules and encouraged UQ to add chances to practise it in clinical settings.

Full attendance is expected, and after the January block nearly all teaching is face to face at Herston. In Year 1, Semester 1, UQ's catalogue lists two hours of workshops and two of tutorials a week for Foundations of Dental Science. Molecular Biosciences for Dentistry has two hours each of lectures and tutorials, and Foundations of Clinical Dentistry I adds two hours of clinical coaching and practical classes of three and six hours.

The 2026 outline for Foundations of Clinical Dentistry II sets out the core of a Semester 2 week: three pre-clinic sessions, two lectures, one peer clinic session and one tutorial. Advanced Dental Science adds weekly seminars and simulation lab sessions, and Research Informed Practice I adds lectures and tutorials.

From the summer semester, clinic sessions fill mornings or afternoons around lectures, pre-clinic and workshops. In 2026, for example, Clinical Dentistry IB held pre-clinic sessions on Thursday mornings, 9am to 12pm, and afternoons, 1pm to 4pm. UQ's catalogue lists about 9 clinical hours a week in the summer semester, 18 in Year 2 Semester 1 and 12 in Semester 2. It lists 9 in Year 3 Semester 1, rising to 28 on placement.

In the placement semesters you are on placement about four days a week, with hours that vary between clinics. The ADC reports that students also have a day a week for the research project.

Head and neck anatomy is a Year 1 subject area. In Semester 1, Foundations of Dental Science covers the anatomy, histology (tissue structure under the microscope) and embryology (development before birth) of the head, neck and mouth. It also covers the salivary glands, tooth development and eruption, and the anatomy of baby and adult teeth. In the 2026 outline, tooth anatomy has its own exam, which may ask you to identify extracted natural teeth.

In the 2026 outline, anatomy is examined in a two-hour practical test worth 30 percent of that subject. It covers the bones, muscles, nerves and vessels of the head and neck and the structure of the mouth. It is a hurdle, meaning a must-pass item: you need 50 percent, with one resit capped at 50 percent. You use this anatomy again in Year 1's local anaesthetic competency.

Year 1 prepares you for patients through pre-clinic simulation and weekly peer clinics with classmates. Late in Semester 2 you must pass competencies in giving local anaesthetic and taking dental x-rays, and a case-based viva, an oral exam on a written case.

Even simulated work in the clinics counts as clinical placement, so UQ's placement rules apply from the start, beginning with your immunisation record. Before the summer clinics you also need a Working with Children Check (Queensland's blue card), a National Police Certificate, first aid and CPR certificates, and the faculty's placement preparation module.

Patients arrive in week 3 of the summer semester, around mid-December, at the UQ Herston Dental Clinic. You start with healthy adults: examination, diagnosis of common conditions, prevention, simple gum treatment, small fillings and reading x-rays. The ADC reported in 2025 that staff triage patients and allocate them according to each student's skill level.

Responsibility builds each semester. In Year 2 the specialist subjects move you into the public clinics at the Oral Health Centre, and you add dentures, simple extractions and patients with moderately complex needs. In Year 3, back at the UQ Herston Dental Clinic, you add implant dentistry and children, whom you may treat only after passing the paediatric simulation test.

In the final two semesters you give comprehensive care to allocated patients on placement. Throughout, clinical educators mark you against where you should be at your stage of the course, not against a qualified dentist.

UQ grades each subject on a seven-point scale, where 4 is a pass and needs at least 50 percent. Most DMD subjects also have hurdles. Failing a hurdle means failing the subject, even with an overall mark of 50 percent or more. You must pass every subject in a year before moving on.

End-of-semester written exams are sat in person and invigilated, with multiple-choice, short-answer, problem-solving and case-scenario questions. Practical skills are tested under exam conditions in pre-clinic: fillings in Year 1, then crowns, root canal treatment and, in Year 3, a stainless steel crown for a child's tooth.

Station exams test skills against the clock. In an OSCE you rotate through stations that each test one task. UQ's MSATs (Multiple Station Assessment Tasks) work similarly, for areas such as orthodontics and periodontics. In vivas and case presentations, you talk examiners through a case from diagnosis to treatment plan.

Every clinical semester has a Clinical Practice Portfolio. After each session with a patient, your clinical educator rates you as Expectations Not Met, Developing, Expectations Met or Above Expectations. Fitness to practise, meaning safe and professional conduct, is also checked, and failing it turns that session into Expectations Not Met. You add case tallies and reflections at mid-semester and at the end.

In most clinical subject outlines, a passing portfolio needs an average of at least 2.5 out of 4, about 63 percent, and three or more Expectations Not Met ratings mean a fail. Because the skills build over a semester, the portfolio has no supplementary assessment or resit.

The placement semesters end with the course's final clinical assessments. In 2026 the first placement subject's OSCE was built around the ADC's competencies for newly qualified dentists, with tasks that can include writing a prescription, giving local anaesthetic and mock extractions on manikins.

• Resits: in the 2026 outlines, many failed practical hurdles can be resat once, capped at the pass mark, usually 50 percent. The cap is 60 percent for the Clinical Dentistry IB root canal test and the Year 3 paediatric test. Some practical tests, such as the crown preparation in Advanced Clinical Dentistry IB (Year 2, Semester 1), have no resit.
• Attendance: at least 90 percent of pre-clinic, peer clinic and workshop sessions, and of clinical sessions, rising to 95 percent of clinical sessions in your last two semesters. Missing too many can mean a make-up week of clinic in the break, an extra assessment task or a fail.
• The case-based oral exam in the first placement semester is taken before two examiners and uses a patient you managed in Year 3's first semester whose care involved at least three dental disciplines.
• Weights come from the 2026 course profiles, UQ's subject outlines; the summer subjects' profiles are for Summer Semester 2025. Details may change for later intakes.
• External examiners: the ADC has asked UQ to show, by 31 January 2027, its plans for external examiners to assess final-year students. The first cohort's final placement exams fall in late 2026 and the first half of 2027.
• Registration: the DMD is accredited by the ADC and approved by the Dental Board of Australia, so graduates can apply for registration as dentists through Ahpra, up to three months before finishing. UQ registers you as a dental student on your behalf, at no cost.

From the summer semester to the end of Year 3's first semester, you treat patients in two settings inside the Oral Health Centre at Herston. One is the UQ Herston Dental Clinic, the School's own teaching clinic on Level 2. The other is the public clinics of Metro North Hospital and Health Service, one of the regional Hospital and Health Services that run Queensland's public health system. Care in the public clinics is mostly free for patients with concession cards, while UQ Herston Dental Clinic patients pay set fees.

The last two semesters, Year 3's second semester and Year 4, are placements in general dental practice settings. UQ names clinics such as regional government dental clinics, Community Controlled Health Services and Oral Health Centre clinics. You rotate through several of them.

UQ says placements are throughout Queensland, some possibly outside the Brisbane metropolitan area, and that you fund your own travel and living costs. For dental students, UQ's faculty placement page says school accommodation may be available through the Placement Manager.

The ADC's 2025 report adds that final-year placements include regional placements and a recently completed paediatric clinic. It also names West Moreton Health, the public health service for Ipswich, the Scenic Rim, the Lockyer Valley and Somerset, which has committed to a broad range of clinical experiences. The ADC has since recorded formal placement agreements with it as in place.

Each placement brings paperwork. From Year 2, UQ's checklist adds Queensland Health requirements, including an orientation checklist and online modules. For each Hospital and Health Service you attend, you also sign a Student Deed Poll, a legal agreement to do the placement on Queensland Health's terms. UQ holds the Student Placement Deed that Queensland Health requires before its facilities can host students.

The DMD has no separate Honours or intercalated year, meaning a year out to take an extra research degree. Research is built into the 64 units instead, through three Research Informed Practice subjects; the ADC notes that the research component was shaped to meet the requirements of an AQF level 9 degree.

In Year 1, Research Informed Practice I teaches oral epidemiology (patterns of oral disease across populations), statistics and how to appraise research. You give a paired seminar on a landmark and a recent paper, and write a literature review. In Year 3, Research Informed Practice II has your group choose a topic with a supervisor and write a full proposal, while you write an individual ethics brief and review another group's proposal.

Research Informed Practice III runs through your final two semesters. Your team collects and analyses its data, attends three progress interviews and writes a journal-style report that you must pass. Each of you then gives a final presentation and answers questions on it, and the teams present at a research conference for the cohort and members of the public.

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, a research laboratory, two auditoriums and a seminar room complex. It is across the street from Herston station on Brisbane's Inner Northern Busway.

Pre-clinic teaching uses two laboratories with 161 seats between them. Each workstation has a phantom head with a moveable jaw, dental suction, handpieces (dental drills) and water. The space also has surgical microscopes, intra-oral x-ray units, intra-oral scanners, CAD-CAM (computer-aided design and manufacture) equipment and a plaster lab. A dental technical lab with 3D printers prepares the teaching exercises.

At the UQ Herston Dental Clinic, students provide general dental care to patients aged 16 and over under direct supervision from registered dental practitioners. It runs on weekdays all year, closing on public holidays and between Christmas and New Year.

During its 2025 visit, the ADC toured Clinic 2.1, a clinic set aside for DMD students. Part of it had recently been refurbished, and upgrades were planned for its remaining older chairs.

DMD students have lockers in the building, which also houses the School's Student and Academic Services team on Level 7 and a prayer room on Level 5. The Herston Health Sciences Library is at the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, Herston.

The DMD has its own Program Convenor, who in 2026 also coordinated the first clinical subject. Problems with a subject go first to its coordinator, and program-wide issues can go through your student representative to School committees. Subject coordinators also track attendance and refer you to the Program Convenor before it falls below the required level. The Student and Academic Services team at Herston handles administration, from enrolment to graduation.

New Bachelor of Dental Science (Honours) and DMD students can join the School's Peer Mentoring Program. It puts you in a small group led by one or two senior dentistry students, and you can choose a group for your own program. The UQ Dental Students' Association runs academic seminars, first aid and CPR courses, social and sporting events, and links to volunteering. The ADC's 2025 report said strong demand had produced a high-calibre, dedicated cohort whose students are very supportive of each other.