The Bristol Dentistry course

Each year of the BDS counts as one single unit rather than a bundle of separate modules. The named blocks on your timetable, such as Oral Biology or Pharmacology, organise the teaching, but you are assessed on the year as a whole. Staff from the university's schools of Anatomy, Biochemistry, Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience, and Cellular and Molecular Medicine all contribute, and every science topic is taught with its dental relevance made explicit.

The balance of teaching shifts year by year. Year 1 is mostly lectures, laboratory classes, anatomy and practice on classmates. Years 2 and 3 move from phantom heads (mannequin heads with artificial teeth) in the clinical skills laboratory to real patients, each step unlocked by a competency test. All knowledge-based teaching finishes by the end of year 4, so year 5 is spent mainly treating patients.

Year 5 also prepares you for Dental Foundation Training (DFT). This is a year of supervised work in an NHS general dental practice, which most newly qualified UK dentists choose to do before working independently in the NHS. You also complete a portfolio of clinical evidence that you began in year 1.

The course is aligned to the GDC's Safe Practitioner framework, the learning outcomes and behaviours that new dental professionals must meet. The GDC published it in November 2023, and it took effect from August 2025. Evidence-based practice runs through every year, from year 3 workshops on judging the quality of research to a written evidence summary in year 4. Every student also completes Good Clinical Practice training from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), which prepares you to ask patients to take part in clinical studies.

Digital dentistry is a recent addition. The school invested in upgrading its digital dentistry capacity in 2024, and since September 2025 it has built digital clinical workflows into its courses. A digital clinical workflow is a treatment process in which some of the steps are carried out with digital equipment and software. The school says digital dentistry now runs through its teaching.

The faculty's guidance for all its professional courses, which include dentistry, medicine and veterinary science, says teaching runs across all five weekdays. It gives core hours of 8am to 6pm and an average workload of around 40 hours a week. Wednesday afternoons are kept free for sport and clubs in the early years where possible. The faculty says this free afternoon is usually not available in later years.

Student clinics at the Dental School are usually held on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Each day has a morning session from 9am to 12.30pm and an afternoon session from 1.30pm to 5pm, and a single patient appointment can last up to three hours. By year 5, a large share of each week is spent treating patients.

Patients are booked on fixed days that follow the student timetable, and there is no treatment by students in the holidays. The building is open to patients only until 12.30pm on Wednesdays, and it is closed at weekends.

The faculty says terms on its professional courses often run longer than the standard university year, and that many assessments fall outside the normal exam timetable. For the BDS, the GDC's 2024 report gives a programme length of 178 weeks across five years, an average of about 36 weeks a year.

Anatomy is taught from year 1 as practical sessions alongside laboratory and clinical skills work, with input from the university's School of Anatomy. The focus is the head and neck: one of the year's stated outcomes is that you can explain how the human body is built and works, with particular attention to this region. The course page tells applicants that training involves contact with human and animal cadaveric material.

Tooth morphology, the detailed shape of each tooth, starts in year 1 and becomes a must-pass test in year 2. Anatomy also returns in a clinical setting. In year 2 you study the anatomy of local anaesthesia alongside pain and anxiety management, and in year 3 you learn the oral and dental anatomy that underpins oral surgery.

Your first clinical experiences are with classmates rather than patients. In year 1 you observe in clinics and practise basic examinations on each other under supervision. In term 1 of year 2, a clinical week with hygiene and therapy students lets you practise gum assessments, preventive advice and basic gum treatment on each other.

Before you treat a member of the public you must pass the Gateway to Patients exam, which checks your clinical skills and your knowledge of the processes and diseases involved. You can resit it during year 2 until you pass. You then start treating adult patients in February, beginning with periodontal (gum) care and preventive advice. After passing operative skills tests on phantom heads, you begin your first fillings under local anaesthetic later that term.

Year 3 widens your scope term by term, adding root canal treatment, children, extractions and dentures, each after a laboratory competency. Crowns and bridges, orthodontic patients and specialist clinics led by consultants (senior hospital specialists) follow in year 4. In year 5 you consolidate across restorative, children's, oral surgery and primary care clinics.

Supervision is matched to your stage. The school reviewed and increased its supervision ratios before the GDC's 2024 visit, and students act as dental nurses for each other on clinic until year 5. Radiographs work differently: once you pass a radiography competency you can take X-rays without a radiographer beside you, and the radiography team audits a sample of images.

Bristol assesses each year as a whole. At the end of every year you sit an integrated set of exams, and you must pass each part separately: a strong result in one part cannot make up for a fail in another. Most parts are standard set, meaning examiners judge the difficulty of the paper to fix the pass mark, and marks are then scaled so the pass sits at 50%.

From year 2 the OSCE is held in the clinic itself, and as well as reaching the pass mark you must pass at least two-thirds of the stations. The unseen clinical case, added from year 3, carries more weight as you progress: 10% of the year 3 mark and 20% of the year 4 mark.

Alongside the exams sit must-pass requirements that carry no marks, such as the year 2 gateway tests. A Progress Committee meets each term to check your engagement, your results in these tests and your professionalism, and it can stop you moving up a year even if you pass the exams. You normally have two attempts at each year's exams.

Clinical work is assessed continuously. Supervisors grade each patient case and record it in CAFS, the school's electronic portfolio, which staff review monthly for years 1 to 4 and fortnightly in year 5. Feedback also comes from patients, peers and other healthcare professionals, and about 60% of patients leave feedback on tablets placed around the building.

BDS Finals have three equally weighted parts, and you must pass all three. Part 1, in January, is four two-hour knowledge papers. Part 2 is presentations of two patients you have treated: one adult restorative case and one child. Part 3 is six unseen cases covering adult restorative dentistry, oral surgery and medicine, and children's dentistry. Merits and distinctions are awarded on the degree as a whole.

If you leave the course early, the years you have passed can still lead to an award. The programme specification lists a Certificate of Higher Education in the Science of Dentistry after year 1 and a Diploma of Higher Education in the Science of Dentistry after year 2. It lists a BSc in the Science of Dentistry for students leaving after year 3 or year 4, with the exact rules set by the university's regulations.

The GDC's 2024 inspection found that students gain most of their clinical experience in the Dental School building itself, where supervision is easiest to manage. It also noted that assessment methods are the same at every teaching location.

Specialist teaching uses the University of Bristol Dental Hospital on Lower Maudlin Street in central Bristol, part of University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust (UHBW). There you observe or carry out treatment under close supervision in paediatric dentistry, orthodontics, oral surgery, maxillofacial surgery, oral medicine and special care dentistry. A formal agreement with UHBW also covers the hospital rotation from late year 4 into year 5.

Outside dental settings, the year 3 block placement in a medical hospital is run with UHBW and North Bristol NHS Trust. Outreach, meaning clinical and health work away from the main school, takes you into care homes and, in year 3 where opportunities allow, schools. The school reviews its agreements for external placements every year.

The course page describes treating a diverse range of patients in and around Bristol, and the school's 2026 Social Impact Report puts figures on this. In 2024/25 students and staff gave 54,510 free appointments, nearly 9% of all NHS primary care dental appointments in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire. Some 55% went to patients from the most deprived postcodes in Bristol, where NHS dental care is known to be hardest to get.

Some patients reach you through the school's community schemes. It works with primary schools in Lawrence Hill, Easton and St George West, where parents can refer their children directly for treatment by supervised dental and dental therapy students. More than 1,500 children have been seen so far, many of whom had never seen a dentist before.

After a pilot in 2024, the school also set up a care pathway for people experiencing homelessness. The BrisDoc Homeless Health Service in Stokes Croft refers them, and students treat them under supervision at the Dental School. In 2026 the school reported 29 patients under treatment through this route.

Intercalating means taking a year out of the dental course to complete a separate degree, then returning to carry on. At Bristol it is optional and happens after year 3, so the whole programme would take six years. You can study for a BSc, a BA, an MRes (a research master's) or an MSc, and the faculty's list also includes a master's in law (LLM) in Health, Law and Society.

The faculty lists a wide range of intercalated degrees open to dental students. BSc examples include Functional and Clinical Anatomy, Global Health, Healthcare Ethics and Law, Neuroscience and Pharmacology, and there is a BA in Medical Humanities. Master's options include Public Health, Epidemiology, Health Sciences Research and Artificial Intelligence for Medicine and Health. Several BSc options are a one-year entry into the final year of an existing three-year degree.

The Dental School at 1 Trinity Quay, a £36 million facility in a refurbished building, opened in September 2023. It covers 7,300 square metres over five storeys and was designed with input from students and staff. The extra space was intended to let the university increase its dental student places by around 25%.

There are 119 dental chairs across six clinical areas, including a general practice clinic meant to give you the feel of a real practice. Students are supported by dental nurses, dental technicians, sterilisation staff and patient administrators. The clinical skills laboratory is where you work on phantom heads before treating patients.

Treatment in the building is free for adults and children. The school does not hold an NHS contract, so it accepts patients whose needs match what students must learn and does not offer everything, such as tooth whitening. The CQC inspected in February 2025 and found the school met the regulations. It then hosted 412 undergraduate and 60 postgraduate oral health students.

Every student has a personal tutor within the Dental School, backed by a network of senior tutors. Each year you write a personal development plan and review it with your tutor, using the Bristol Skills Profile, the university's framework of nine skills it wants every student to build. In year 5 that plan extends into your foundation training year.

Wellbeing is part of the timetable rather than an add-on. Lifelong learning and wellbeing feature in every year's teaching, with a named Lifelong Learning and Wellbeing block from year 2, and the opening Foundations block includes study skills and wellbeing training.

Peer Assisted Study Sessions (PASS) are the university's informal study groups, led by trained later-year students. Dental Surgery is one of the courses running them in 2026/27, and first years are added to a group automatically, though you can opt out. Later-year dental students can be paid to lead these sessions.

On clinic, the patient allocation team helps you find the cases you still need, and you can give feedback on your supervisors through CAFS. The GDC's 2024 inspectors found students largely content with the number of supervisors available, and supervision is kept up during staff absences using floating and extra staff.