The UWA Dental course

The DMD has 20 units, grouped into streams covering comprehensive clinical care, developmental and behavioural sciences, diagnostic and surgical sciences, and restorative and rehabilitative sciences. In years 1 and 2 you take four 6-point units each semester. Years 3 and 4 each have two 24-point Integrated Dental Practice units, one per semester, so the timetable is built around clinics rather than separate subjects.

Science and hands-on skills run together from the start. In the same first semester that you study the body systems and head and neck anatomy, you learn infection control, ergonomics and the basics of operative dentistry on simulators. The school says it favours student-centred teaching, and that you learn either by treating patients under close supervision or by watching general and specialist dentists at work.

The balance shifts every year. Lectures carry much of the early timetable, but by final year you have two a week and spend most of your time treating patients. Personal and professional development runs through years 2 to 4, and ethics and public health dentistry, first met in year 1, return in the final years.

The ADC's 2025 report noted significant recent changes to the curriculum and praised the school for reviewing the program, including an internal review carried out by external parties. Interviews at the visit pointed to an apparent disconnect between some classroom and clinic teaching, and UWA had already mapped the curriculum to align the two. The ADC asked it to evaluate the revised curriculum by 1 August 2026.

The handbook lists approximate contact hours for every unit, and together they show the week changing from lectures and simulation to clinics. It allows for about 36 weeks of contact time a year, and the course page says the first DMD year runs 39 weeks in all. Your own timetable will vary from week to week.

• DMD year 1: four units each semester at roughly 5 to 6 hours a week each. Anatomy and Oral Sciences, for example, has 2 lectures and 3 hours of practical work.
• DMD year 2: four units each semester, mostly 3 lectures and about 3 hours of practical or clinical sessions per unit each week.
• DMD year 3: 8 lectures and about 21 hours of practical and clinical sessions a week.
• DMD year 4: 2 lectures and about 24 hours of practical and clinical sessions a week.
• School leavers: UWA quotes 30 to 35 hours of teaching time a week for the Integrated Dental Sciences major, plus study time. Its year 3 dental units run over two 18-week semesters starting in mid-January and early July.

Head and neck anatomy is taught in Anatomy and Oral Sciences (DENT3003), in the first semester of DMD year 1. It covers the bones, muscles, blood supply and nerves of the head and neck. It also covers the anatomy, histology (tissue structure under the microscope), physiology and development of the mouth and teeth, including both baby and adult teeth.

Each week has two lectures and three hours of practical work, and you apply what you learn through pre-clinical exercises. The unit is assessed through written and practical assessments.

The rest of the body is covered in Body Systems 1 and 2, which take the anatomy, histology, physiology and pathology of each organ system as it relates to dentistry. Radiographic anatomy follows in second semester, when you learn to read X-rays of the head and neck. School leavers meet the human body plan and basic histology earlier, in their first bachelor unit, Form and Function.

You learn hand skills on simulators before you touch a patient. From the first semester of year 1 you practise operative dentistry in a simulation setting, with attention to posture and instrument handling, and in second semester you place fillings on model teeth. UWA also describes early dental immersion activities in year 1 that introduce clinical dentistry.

Patient care starts in DMD year 2. In the first semester you carry out full oral and radiographic (X-ray) examinations, diagnose common problems, start initial treatment and give local anaesthetic to patients in the clinic. In the second semester you give your own patients a wider range of gum, root canal and restorative care, adding procedures under supervision as the weeks go on. Alongside the clinic, more advanced root canal work, multi-tooth restorations and dentures are practised in simulation.

In years 3 and 4 the number and complexity of your procedures rise. You learn extractions and minor oral surgery, manage oral disease and dental injuries, and treat children. UWA describes final year as close to independent but still supervised practice, including emergency care at OHCWA, aimed at readying you to work as a dentist on your own.

Your patients must be able to come regularly, because appointments with students can run up to three hours and student treatment takes more visits. Cases beyond a student's skills go to a specialist, a registrar, a staff dentist or another public clinic.

Most units combine written and practical assessments, while the Body Systems units use assignments, tests and an exam. To pass a unit you need at least 50 per cent overall and the required standard in each main component. Professional behaviour, including attendance, punctuality, communication and how you respond to feedback, is observed throughout every unit. It is graded pass or fail, and you must pass it to pass the unit.

In the final-year OSCE you move through timed stations that each test a clinical task, all built around comprehensive patient care. The written assessment pass mark is 50 per cent, and in the first final-year unit clinical session scores must reach 60 per cent. The last unit also grades the research project.

Clinical feedback is recorded in PebblePad, an online portfolio. The ADC's 2025 report said it had made feedback more consistent and transparent, but that supervisors were still being calibrated to give consistent feedback. UWA was asked to report on this by October 2025, and the ADC has recorded that requirement as met.

Progression rules are strict. You must pass every unit in a teaching period to move on, and you must complete all compulsory sessions and pass the practical and clinical work before sitting final assessments. A student who fails is normally put on probation and repeats the whole academic year, and failing again after repeating a unit normally means exclusion.

A resit, called supplementary assessment, is possible only for a failed written or non-clinical practical component. It is not offered if you fail more than two units or modules in a teaching period, are on probation or are repeating a year. Graduates with a weighted average mark of 80 per cent or more receive the degree with distinction.

Most of your clinical time is at OHCWA in Nedlands. The course rules also require clinical work at other locations the Dental School approves, and final year is when you spread out. UWA lists OHCWA clinics, Dental Health Services community dental clinics in metropolitan Perth and various rural dental clinics, with compulsory rural and private practice rotations.

Dental Health Services is funded by the state government, and WA Health describes it as the largest public dental provider in Western Australia. It runs general dental clinics across Perth and country WA for concession card holders. The ADC's 2025 report also names a Mount Henry clinic, which its team toured and whose clinical supervisors it interviewed.

OHCWA runs a second clinic in Bunbury, at the UWA Dental School on the Edith Cowan University (ECU) campus, 585 Robertson Drive, where patients can ask to be treated by student dentists. The ADC interviewed Bunbury clinical supervisors in 2025. Rural Health West said in 2023 that Bunbury had until then been the only regional placement option.

Remote placements began in April 2023. Two students and a clinical supervisor spent two weeks at the Derby Aboriginal Health Service dental clinic in the Kimberley, mostly giving emergency care, then visited dental services in Broome. Rural Health West set up the placements with senior lecturer Dr Jilen Patel. It reported further placements in Roebourne and Newman in the Pilbara and Katanning in the Great Southern by May 2023.

In October 2025 Rural Health West said the program places final-year students in clinics across the Pilbara and Kimberley, such as Mawarnkarra Health Service in Roebourne. At its April 2025 visit the ADC had concerns about the diversity of patients at OHCWA and Mount Henry. It praised the rural placements for widening the range of patients students see, and recommended expanding them so all students have access. UWA was asked for a progress report by October 2025, and the ADC has recorded that requirement as met.

The 2026 handbook lists urban, rural, interstate and international placements among the final-year costs students meet themselves, estimated at $1,000 to $5,000.

The DMD itself has no electives. Every unit in its 2026 structure is compulsory, from the eight first-year units to the four Integrated Dental Practice units.

School leavers get some choice in the first two years of the bachelor. The example study plan leaves two elective slots each semester in years 1 and 2, and every UWA bachelor student must take at least four broadening units (24 points) outside their major. A one-semester exchange is possible only in semester 1 of second year, depending on places at partner universities, and dental-pathway students must get advice before going.

Because Integrated Dental Sciences is an extended major, there is no room for a second major alongside it in year 3.

Some courses let you take an extra year of research partway through, called an intercalated or Honours year. The DMD has none: all of its units are compulsory and run in sequence, and UWA says the Integrated Dental Sciences major does not lead to Honours either.

After graduating, you could take one of UWA's graduate diplomas in Dental Public and Primary Health, Forensic Odontology or Health Professions Education. Other options are a Master of Dental Public and Primary Health, a PhD, and the three-year Doctor of Clinical Dentistry. That degree trains dentists as specialists in endodontics, orthodontics, periodontics, prosthodontics, paediatric dentistry or oral medicine.

OHCWA combines the Dental School's teaching spaces with a working public dental clinic. The Dental School lists clinic and laboratory teaching spaces, a prosthodontics laboratory, research laboratories and student learning areas. UWA reported in January 2022 that its refurbished main clinic was open to patients.

Pre-clinical work happens in the Dental School's Simulation and Operative Technique Laboratories, where you practise on model teeth and mouths, some fitted in phantom heads on dental simulators. The ADC's team toured the simulation clinics in April 2025 and found OHCWA's learning spaces, clinics and equipment well suited to building the skills students need to qualify.

In 2022 UWA announced a $2.9 million project to turn the 20-year-old Operative Technique laboratory at OHCWA into a Clinical Skills Simulation Laboratory, with more workstations and new equipment. In November 2022 it said the work was scheduled for the coming summer break.

For digital dentistry there is a digital radiology suite, a central production lab with CAD/CAM equipment and a Virtual Learning Centre. Its computers are used for designing restorations by CAD/CAM, digital radiology and virtual microscopy, which means studying tissue slides on screen.

The ADC's 2025 report commended the support and mentoring students receive, including from clinical coordinators, a role the school had recently added. The coordinators sort incoming patients so that each student gets a fair share of suitable cases.

Student representatives meet the Head of School to give feedback, which the ADC said students valued. For short-term compassionate, medical or personal leave you apply to the course coordinator, and any missed compulsory session must be made up in the same teaching period. Approved leave, a formal break from the course, is not available in the first year of the DMD.