The Queen Mary (QMUL) Dentistry course

The course is organised around four themes: Basic Sciences for Dentistry, Human Health and Disease, Population Oral Health and Evidence Based Dentistry, and Clinical Practice and Professionalism. Each year is worth 120 credits. In year 1, 80 of your 120 credits are basic science, but from year 3 the whole year sits in Clinical Practice and Professionalism.

That clinical theme spans every dental subject. It covers restorative dentistry, which means repairing and replacing damaged teeth with fillings, crowns and bridges, as well as gum care, orthodontics and children's dentistry. It also includes special care dentistry, the care of people with disabilities or complex medical needs.

The design is a spiral. Topics you meet early come back later in more depth, so the human health and disease teaching from the early years is expanded in later years. The science is laid down mainly in year 1 and stays as a thread through the course. Professionalism, teamwork and social responsibility run through every year, alongside ethics, law and the psychology of changing patients' habits.

Teaching happens in weekly sessions of three sizes: small groups of up to 10, larger groups of 20 or more, and one-to-one teaching at the dental chair. Lectures are recorded and posted on QMPlus, the university's online learning site. Some topics use flipped learning, where you watch short videos or read beforehand and use class time to apply what you learned. Attendance at every timetabled session and clinic is compulsory.

The balance shifts as you move up. Year 1 is mostly science with a clinical introduction focused on prevention. Year 2 builds core technical skills in the clinical skills laboratory, year 3 moves you into outreach clinics, and years 4 and 5 are advanced clinical practice in several settings. On clinic you are supervised by university clinical staff and by general dental practitioners who work as clinical supervisors.

Queen Mary publishes the planned study hours for every module. Each year adds up to about 1,200 hours, split between lectures, seminars, practical classes, independent study and work-based learning, which here means learning on clinic. These are planning figures rather than a timetable, but they show how your week changes as the course goes on.

Year 1 is mostly independent study. About 250 of its 1,200 hours are scheduled teaching: 142 hours of lectures, 68 of practical classes and workshops, 30 of seminars and just 10 of work-based learning. The other 950 hours are for studying on your own.

Year 2 has more practical classes than any other year. Practical classes and workshops rise to 340 hours, most of them in the clinical practice module, alongside 190 hours of lectures, 100 of seminars and 40 of demonstrations. Independent study falls to 530 hours.

From year 3 the balance moves to the clinic. Planned work-based learning is about 530 hours in year 3, 780 in year 4 and 865 in year 5. Lectures take 107 to 110 hours a year in years 3 and 4 and 50 in year 5, and independent study is 160 to 200 hours a year. Year 3 also plans 250 hours of practical classes and 100 of project supervision.

Contact with patients starts in year 1. You are introduced to the clinical environment, its equipment and materials, and you observe patients being treated. You also attend clinics to give patients advice on preventing dental disease, which is your first direct part in patient care.

In year 1 this is a small part of the timetable. Queen Mary plans about 10 hours of work-based learning in the year 1 clinical module, compared with more than 500 hours a year from year 3.

Before you treat anyone, you practise in the clinical skills laboratory on phantom heads and haptic simulators. For each type of treatment you then sit a gateway test, a practical check that you are competent. Only after passing it may you carry out that treatment on patients. If you fail, you get a remediation plan and a resit date, and LiftUpp blocks that procedure until you pass.

Responsibility builds year by year. Year 2 expands your clinical knowledge and treatment skills while you keep seeing patients. From year 3 you treat adults and children, and third-year students often do their first fillings, extractions or denture work at the Barkantine outreach clinic. Years 4 and 5 bring more complex cases, including treatment in the hospital.

The patients are members of the public treated free of charge by Barts Health NHS Trust. Students provide fillings, extractions, deep cleaning, dentures, crowns and root canal treatment. Appointments last 1.5 to 2.5 hours and run on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays in term time. A patient may see more than one student during a course of treatment.

Every module is core, so you must pass all of them to move into the next year. Some assessments are formative, meaning they do not count towards your marks but show where you need help. Others are summative and do count. Assessments take place in the clinical skills laboratory or with patients.

Year 1 is examined mainly through written papers and OSCEs. The papers use single best answer questions, where you pick the best of several options, very short answer questions, where you give a word or phrase, and short answer questions. In an OSCE you move round timed stations, carrying out clinical tasks and talking to real or simulated patients.

Later years lean towards practical skills and clinical reasoning. You meet Structured Clinical Reasoning exams, which test how you think through a patient's case, case presentations and viva voce exams, where examiners question you in person. Work on clinic is assessed through workplace-based assessments called clinical course units. Professionalism is assessed through a reflective portfolio.

Your clinical work is recorded on LiftUpp, which logs each activity, how it was assessed and the feedback you received, and shows your progress with a traffic-light display. If you have not yet passed the gateway test for a procedure, supervisors see an alert and will not let you do it on a patient. Progress Review Panels look at every year group three times a year.

Skills are re-checked rather than tested once. Since 2025, students have revalidated their endodontic (root canal) and fixed prosthodontic (crown and bridge) skills in the clinical skills laboratory every year. Students in years 1 to 4 who are short of clinical experience get extra clinic time, simulation practice and targeted support.

If your clinical performance is not good enough, you may have to follow a remedial programme or repeat part of the course. Students who leave without finishing may receive a certificate, diploma or ordinary degree in Dental Sciences, but these do not allow you to register as a dentist.

Your clinical training takes place in east London with Barts Health NHS Trust, Queen Mary's NHS partner for the course. Your home base is the Royal London Dental Hospital in Whitechapel. You also rotate around three outreach centres, community clinics that give you experience at the level of a general dental practice.

The rotation depends on your year. In year 3 you spend a day every two weeks at Barkantine. In years 3 and 4 you also attend the Sir Ludwig Guttmann Centre every fortnight, with separate adult and child clinics. In the autumn of year 5 you return there for children only. These patterns come from the clinics' own pages, which describe the course as it runs for current students.

Every site Queen Mary names is in east London and close to a Tube, DLR or Overground station. When the GDC inspected in March 2026, it heard of plans to open a new outreach centre in Barking in about two years' time.

Student-selected components let you study an area in more depth, based on your own interests. Current options include audit, quality improvement projects, research, clinical and communication skills, dental materials science, pathology, pharmacology and prevention of oral diseases. An audit checks whether care meets an agreed standard, while a quality improvement project tests a change designed to make care better. The list may change.

In year 3 your student-selected component counts for 5% of the year's module mark, and the year 3 module plans about 100 hours of project supervision. How well you do in these components counts towards your continuous assessment.

Eligible students may also get the chance of observational placements in the UK or abroad, where you watch dentists at work. These are self-funded, so you would pay for flights, accommodation and any fees the host charges.

Intercalating means taking a year out of dentistry to complete a separate degree, then returning to the BDS. At Queen Mary it is optional. You can apply for an intercalated BSc (iBSc) after year 2, 3 or 4, or an intercalated master's (MSc) after year 3 or 4. You must have passed every year so far, and selection is based on your exam results and an interview.

Queen Mary's own iBSc courses include Experimental Pathology, Global Medical Humanities, Global Public Health, Neuroscience, Pharmacology and Innovative Therapeutics, and Sports and Exercise Medicine. Each includes a research project supervised by a member of staff. The Medical Education iBSc is suspended for 2026/27, and the options may change.

Several master's degrees on Queen Mary's intercalation list are dental: Dental Materials, Dental Technology, Experimental Oral Pathology (Oral Sciences) and Oral Biology. An MSc needs at least three years of the BDS behind you and lasts 12 months. A small number of students intercalate at other universities instead.

Every treatment surgery in the Whitechapel building has a computer with a second screen at the chair, so you can show patients their images and talk them through the results.

The clinical skills laboratory is set up to feel like a real clinic and has facilities for 72 phantom heads. It sits alongside haptic, virtual reality and IT labs. Extra supervised sessions are available if you want more time to practise a technique or need to catch up.

The building also has digital imaging, two cone beam CT machines, which take 3D X-rays of the teeth and jaws, and facial-scanning equipment. There are 92 production laboratory spaces, the workshop area where items such as dentures and crowns are made, plus dedicated seminar rooms and a student learning centre.

Elsewhere on the Whitechapel campus, the Blizard Building has research laboratories and a 400-seat lecture theatre. The Garrod Building, reopened in January 2024 after a refurbishment, is home to Barts and The London Students' Association. You can also use the Queen Mary Library at Mile End, the medical archives at the Royal London and Barts hospitals, and the University of London Library.

Every student has an Academic Advisor who looks after a group of 8 to 14 students. Your advisor runs two reflective practice sessions a year with the group, where you look back on how your learning is going, and can help you explore options if you are struggling academically.

The Student Support Office gives confidential advice on personal, academic and financial matters. Handbooks setting out learning outcomes, clinical requirements and deadlines are kept up to date on QMPlus. When the GDC inspected in March 2026, it found strong and effective support systems for students.

If you have dyslexia or another specific learning difficulty, the Disability and Dyslexia Service can arrange support. Examples include lecture notes in advance and permission to record clinical skills sessions on phantom heads and haptic simulators. Clinics and labs are accessible, with ground-floor clinics, lifts and ramps.