The UCLan (Graduate Dentistry) Dentistry course

Teaching mixes several formats. Core knowledge comes from lectures and tutorials, and from problem-based learning (PBL), explained below. Clinical skills start on simulators and move on to real patients. You also practise communication with actors playing patients. Professionalism is taught in every year, and from 2nd BDS you write reflections on your own practice.

The balance shifts after the first year. 2nd BDS is the most campus-based part of the course. From 3rd BDS your clinical learning happens mainly at your DEC, and you come back to Preston for short courses on more complex procedures.

Independent study is a large part of the degree, and each module descriptor sets out how your study time is split. Course materials sit on Blackboard, the university's online learning platform. Chair-side computers in the Preston skills area and at the DECs let you view a procedure during clinical teaching and go back to it later.

The course page lists a single compulsory module for each year. When the GDC inspected in 2024, each year was split into several smaller modules, and the School told inspectors it was planning a course restructure. The module names in the Years section below are the current ones.

The clearest account of the week comes from the GDC's 2024 inspection report. It was written before the modules were reorganised, so check at an open day that the pattern still holds. In 2nd BDS you are on the Preston campus, combining lectures, tutorials, PBL and clinical skills sessions.

In 3rd and 4th BDS, students spent two days a week treating patients at their DEC. The other days were timetabled for theory, taught either face to face or online, along with practical simulation workshops. Hospital placements were added from 4th BDS.

In the final year, students were still at the DEC two days a week and spent one more day treating patients at an enhanced training practice. The current course page says ETP work begins in the last semester of the final year, so this extra day may now apply only to that semester. The same report puts the whole course at 168 weeks over four years, an average of 42 weeks of study a year.

Anatomy is taught in the Human Anatomy and Resource Learning Centre (HARLC) in Preston. There is particular focus on the head and neck, the region a dentist works in every day. Knowing where nerves and blood vessels run matters each time you give a local anaesthetic injection or remove a tooth.

Anatomy staff teach you with anatomical models, written guides and videos of dissections carried out by professionals. While you are based in Preston in 2nd BDS, you can also use the centre outside timetabled sessions to go back over the models and videos. The university gives different opening hours on different pages, so check the current hours at an open day.

In 2024 the GDC recorded that 2nd BDS included a module on oral development and anatomy. Oral development is how the teeth, jaws and mouth form.

2nd BDS prepares you to treat patients. On phantom heads you learn preventive treatments and simple fillings, including cavity preparation, which means shaping a decayed tooth ready for a filling. You also learn periodontal treatment, which is care of the gums and the tissues that support the teeth. Five replica surgeries on campus make the DEC set-up familiar before you arrive.

You begin treating your own patients in 3rd BDS at your DEC. The GDC describes students seeing a range of patients and giving care that matches their level of knowledge and skill. Some new skills, such as root canal treatment, are practised first in simulation workshops (GDC, 2024).

Responsibility grows each year. In 4th BDS you take on patients with more complex needs and start specialist hospital clinics. In the last semester of 5th BDS you also treat patients at an enhanced training practice, working more independently while still supervised.

Your knowledge is tested in formal exams at the end of 2nd, 3rd and 4th BDS, and in a final exam at the end of 5th BDS. Written papers use short answer questions, short notes and single best answer questions, where you choose the best of several options. The GDC's 2024 report says each year mixes formative assessments, which are for practice and feedback, with summative ones that count.

Clinical skill is assessed continuously. Supervisors grade your clinical work as you go, and you keep a reflective logbook alongside those grades. Since July 2024 clinical experience has been recorded on LiftUpp, an online system that replaced the older Leopard system. The GDC asked the School to keep checking that LiftUpp records student data accurately.

When the GDC inspected in 2024, finals included written exams and a practical treatment-planning exam in which actors played patients with different clinical problems. The portfolio also counted towards the final assessment. This is the running log of your learning and reflections that you build up over the course.

You also need enough clinical experience to graduate. When the GDC inspected in 2021, students had target numbers for each type of treatment, and a Clinical Assessment Panel reviewed progress each term. You could sit finals before meeting every target. You still had to complete them all to a competent standard to finish, or extend your studies into the next year.

During the recovery from COVID-19 in 2021, the GDC recorded that for targets of four or more treatments, no more than a quarter could be met in simulation. Smaller targets had to be met on real patients. Ask whether a similar rule still applies. Each DEC also runs authentic assessments, simulated tasks that let you show you are ready for practice when clinic time is free (GDC, 2024).

After 2nd BDS you relocate to one of four DECs for the rest of the course: Accrington, Blackpool, Carlisle or Morecambe Bay. The university places students in community dental services across Lancashire and Cumbria so they get to know the communities they are most likely to serve. It hopes more of its graduates will then stay and work in the area.

Each DEC has surgeries, tutorial rooms and study space set aside for student teaching, and is linked to the university by IT so you can reach the course intranets on site. The GDC's 2024 inspectors said the centres serve areas of high dental need, which gives students a wide mix of patients by age, background and medical history.

On its 2021 COVID-era visit, the GDC noted a process that let students swap between DECs if they needed more experience with a particular type of patient. Supervisors could also refer a student to another clinical setting to complete work they were missing.

From 4th BDS you attend clinics in local National Health Service (NHS) hospitals. The course page lists these as covering oral and maxillofacial surgery, orthodontics, restorative dentistry, paediatric dentistry and special care dentistry. Restorative dentistry is specialist work to repair and replace teeth. In 2019 the GDC recorded hospital placements with five NHS trusts across Lancashire and Cumbria; ask at an open day which hospitals your year will use. From the last semester of the final year you add an enhanced training practice.

The Dentistry Clinical Skills Training Area in Preston has 44 workstations, each with a phantom head. Each workstation is linked to the tutor's station, so you can follow a demonstration in close-up. It also has audio-visual equipment for clinical teaching.

Next to the simulator lab are the Clinical Training Bays: five fully working dental surgeries set up almost exactly like the surgeries at the DECs. You practise every part of a dental appointment there before you move out to a centre.

The Dental Clinic on the Preston campus is a working clinic that supports the School's teaching. Its own page describes it mainly as a place where postgraduate dentists gain clinical experience. The GDC listed it among the sites involved in the BDS in 2019.

In September 2025 the university reported adding eight treatment bays to its Preston dental clinic, taking the total from 16 to 24. It named students on its international route, a course for dentists who qualified overseas, among those who would use them.

Because the year group is spread across four towns, much of your day-to-day support comes from the clinical teachers at your DEC. The GDC's 2024 inspectors found final-year students felt supported in both their clinical progress and their personal welfare. Students told them staff were approachable and usually the first people they turned to.

If you fall behind on clinical experience, staff step in early. In 2024 the GDC noted that DEC tutors identify students who need more experience and find suitable patients for them.

The GDC also found that the School had appointed an achievement coach, whose job was to spot students who needed extra help to keep up and to work with them. It had replaced its Fit to Study process with the university's Support to Study process, which helps students whose health or wellbeing is affecting their studies. The inspectors called both changes good practice.

In 2019 the GDC recorded regular personal tutor sessions that students were positive about, and noted that every staff member is trained as an academic adviser. Some senior clinical teachers at the DECs also act as year leads, which helps communication between the centres and Preston.

Dental foundation training is a 12-month supervised training post, which NHS England describes as the first step in training after you qualify. When you graduate you receive a transcript of your clinical experience to pass to your foundation trainer, the dentist who supervises you during that year. It lets them focus their support on the areas where you have had less practice.