The Liverpool Dentistry course

Liverpool describes its approach as blended, but most teaching is in person, with online material in support. Theory comes through enquiry-based learning, flipped classrooms, research skills development and communication skills teaching, all backed by lectures. Practical teaching covers simulation, simulated patients, medical emergencies training, anatomy sessions, supervised treatment of patients and placements in general practice and hospital.

In Year 1 the science sits in a component called Understanding Clinical Practice. Its scenarios draw together anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, epidemiology and public health, dental health, social and psychological sciences, professionalism, and oral biology and disease. There is no single textbook. You are expected to use a range of sources, including original research papers, from your first year.

Clinical skills follow a fixed sequence. Each Integrated Skills Development component teaches a set of skills in simulation and ends with a gateway, a practical assessment you must pass before using those skills on patients. In 2024 the sixth of these components began at the end of Year 3, so that students could start dentist-level treatment early in Year 4.

On clinic in 2024, the usual ratio was one supervisor to six students, and the School regularly ran sessions at one to one or one to three. Paediatric dentistry had extra staff support. Course materials sit on Canvas, the online learning platform, and the School recommends having your own laptop or tablet to use in class.

Anatomy is taught from Year 1, through the scenarios in Understanding Clinical Practice alongside physiology and biochemistry. The School presents this knowledge of the human body as the base for the clinical skills you build later. In Year 3, teaching still links the basic sciences back to what you see on clinic.

The scenario work is supported by sessions at the Human Anatomy Resource Centre (HARC), the University's dedicated anatomy teaching centre. HARC teaches more than 1,100 students a year from several degrees, including the BDS and the Dental Therapy BSc, and has a named lead for dentistry. Its teaching ranges from small practical classes to formal lectures, and you need a white lab coat for HARC sessions.

The School's welcome page for new students also points them to MicoCharta, an app made to help with learning anatomy, as a way to prepare and revise.

Before you treat anyone, you learn each skill in simulation, on phantom heads and haptic simulators. You must pass an assessment of basic clinical competence before you use a newly learned skill on a patient. The GDC was satisfied in 2024 that no student moved on to patients with new skills before being assessed as competent.

Year 1 starts with patient care observation, in which you watch and help senior students on clinic. A second component, patient care provision, then brings in your own patients. The School's aim is that you are ready to treat them before the end of Year 1, providing preventive care and basic gum treatment.

Many of your patients are members of the public who register for free treatment at the School's training clinics. After an assessment appointment, each is assigned to one student and seen during term time, on weekdays between 9am and 5pm. Qualified dentists and dental technicians supervise at all times. The scheme does not offer complex care such as implants, braces or treatment under sedation, and students do not provide emergency treatment.

Responsibility grows each year. By the end of Year 3 you can provide the full range of care a dental therapist gives. Year 4 adds dentist-level work such as extracting permanent teeth, root canal treatment and replacing missing teeth. By Year 5 you work across the full scope of dental practice. In 2024 the GDC confirmed that patients were told a student would treat them and gave consent, and that students wore a set uniform and badge.

The curriculum is built on milestones that become more complex each year, and you are assessed against the milestones for your year. The academic parts of the course are assessed in several ways. These include multi-response questions (where you pick the correct answer or answers from a set of options), work-based assessment of your real clinical work and oral presentations. Every summative assessment, the kind that counts, comes after a formative practice run with detailed feedback.

In 2024 the GDC watched OSCEs at the dental hospital, some with actors playing patients. Pass marks were not a fixed percentage. They were set by standard-setting methods in which examiners judged what a just-passing (borderline) student should achieve. For written papers, that judgement was also checked against acceptable pass marks and fail rates.

The School monitors your clinical work continually once you pass each competence check, and reports from outreach placements add context. In 2024 the GDC described this system, LiftUpp, recording supervisors' scores for each activity across five domains: clinical, professionalism, management and leadership, communication, and knowledge and understanding. Patient feedback, collected on iPads and terminals after appointments, also fed in. The GDC noted the emphasis on showing competence, not just on the number of procedures completed.

In 2024 two panels used this data. A Clinical Development Monitoring Panel met several times a year and fed back through each student's Academic Advisor. A Clinical Progress Panel met at the end of each year and decided who was ready to move up. In the final year its view was weighed alongside finals results before students were cleared to graduate.

The student clinics are in Liverpool University Dental Hospital, in the same building as the School. They include the hospital's Oral Surgery department, where undergraduate students treat patients under the supervision of clinical teaching staff. The School gives you real-world experience both in the hospital and in primary care, meaning everyday community care such as high-street dental practices. The 2027 course page lists general dental services placements in Years 3 and 5, community dental services and Aintree in Year 4, and Alder Hey in Year 5.

Outreach placements take you into general dental practices. According to the School's 2024 guidance for host practices, a group usually attends one day a week for seven weeks. Each practice takes two to six students a day, and you work in pairs, one treating and one assisting, under full supervision. That guidance covers Year 4 BDS students as well as Years 3 and 5, and groups can mix years on the same day.

In 2024 the GDC reported that the School trained placement staff to score students on LiftUpp, so that assessment matched the hospital's. The School says treating patients in primary care eases your move into dental foundation training. In England, that is the one-year supervised post in an approved NHS training practice that new graduates complete before they can work fully in NHS general practice.

In Years 3 and 5 you also take part in the Smile Squad, working in primary schools and family hubs. Children who need further treatment can be referred to the School's students. Your Year 4 placement is with the regional oral and maxillofacial surgery service, whose consultants treat facial injuries, head and neck cancers, facial deformities and impacted teeth. At Alder Hey, the dental team offers treatment under general anaesthetic for children who cannot accept it awake.

Liverpool University Dental Hospital is a self-contained building on Pembroke Place, built in the late 1960s. It has had several major refurbishments, most recently its Restorative Dentistry department in summer 2024. It has about 160 dental units (fully equipped treatment chairs), including six teaching clinics of 20 units each. It also has its own dental laboratories and day-case operating facilities for treatment under general anaesthetic.

The hospital covers the full range of dental specialties, including oral surgery, oral medicine, special care dentistry, restorative dentistry, orthodontics and paediatric dentistry. Its oral diagnosis department, where patients are examined and their problems identified, takes a limited number of patients for teaching. The hospital handles about 65,000 outpatient attendances a year, and its 35 consultants take referrals from Cheshire, Merseyside and beyond while helping to train students.

Inside the School are simulation suites with haptic technology and phantom heads, plus lecture and seminar rooms equipped for face-to-face and hybrid teaching. The University cites £6 million of recent investment in the School's facilities. Because the School is part of the dental hospital, you dress as a dental professional in clinical areas, and wear scrubs and clinical footwear when treating patients.

From day one you have an Academic Advisor, a member of School staff who stays with you through the course. They help you reflect, set goals and develop leadership skills, carry out welfare checks and point you to further help. If you are not yet ready to progress on clinic, the School draws up an individual action plan that you discuss with them.

The School has its own Student Welfare Team and welfare lead, a staff and student wellbeing group, and a Disability and Dyslexia Contact lead. All students complete compulsory equality, diversity, inclusion and wellbeing training. The School's welcome page for new students also mentions peer mentors in the years above.

The Personal Development and Wellbeing component explains the professional standards expected of you. That includes fitness to practise, the process used when a student's conduct or health raises doubts about whether they can practise safely. You sign a code of conduct each year. You can stand for election to student leadership roles and join the Staff Student Liaison Committee, and the Liverpool University Dental Students' Society runs social events.

The School expects consistent attendance and points students to the attendance statement of the Dental Schools Council, the body that represents UK dental schools. Once you have settled in, your parents or supporters are invited to a website giving an overview of the course and the support available to you. Details follow in the autumn term.