The University of Otago Dentistry course

From year 2 the BDS is a fixed programme. Each year has three prescribed papers worth 120 points in all (points measure the size of a paper), and you need the Dean's approval to take any paper beyond them. You normally have to pass every paper in a year before you can enrol in the next year's papers.

The papers in each year are planned together, so science is timed to match the clinical work it supports. A Professional Development module, covering communication, consultation skills, ethics and professionalism, runs through the clinical papers of years 2 to 4.

The current curriculum started in 2024 after a review that began in 2021. According to the Dental Council, year 2 gained a physiology module built around dentistry and more clinical experience, and five final-year papers were replaced with four new ones. The aims included a focus on Te Tiriti o Waitangi, assessed cultural safety, Pacific health, care of older people, more oral surgery and more equal research and classroom learning for students based in Auckland.

Teaching mixes lectures, workshops, tutorials, group presentations, online e-cases and reflective case reports with simulation, hands-on digital dentistry and patient clinics. In year 2 you practise oral health promotion with students from the Faculty's other oral health programmes. Year 4 students have also been paired with dental technology students to design a dental appliance, though student experiences of this were mixed in 2024.

Your grounding in the human body comes in HSFY, whose papers, including Human Body Systems 1 and 2, cover how the healthy body works from molecules and cells up to organ systems. Anatomy for dentistry starts in year 2 with DENT 262C Anatomy, part of Biomedical Sciences 1.

DENT 262C looks at the head and neck in five ways. Regional anatomy goes area by area, surface anatomy covers what you can see and feel, and radiological anatomy shows how structures appear on X-rays and scans. Developmental anatomy covers how the face and jaws form, and surgical anatomy what matters when you operate. It takes in the bones, muscles, nerves, blood vessels and lymphatics of the region, and why each matters in dentistry.

In the same year, DENT 261 teaches tooth morphology, the shape of every baby and adult tooth, until you can identify any human tooth. DENT 262A Oral Biology covers facial growth and how hard tissues such as enamel and dentine, and the lining of the mouth, develop. Growth and development return in years 3 and 4.

Before you treat anyone, you build skills in the simulation clinic and learn the basics of working in a dental clinic, from infection control to managing medical emergencies. Practical tasks in simulation, and other barrier assessments, must be passed before patient care begins. You also practise some techniques on classmates, which can involve partial undressing or body contact; everyone takes part, under close supervision.

Patients arrive in year 3. The Faculty describes years 3 and 4 as moving from simulation sessions into patient sessions. The Dental Council's 2024 review also recorded a suggestion for a simulation refresher at the start of year 3, before patient care starts. In clinics, students work in pairs or threes at first.

Responsibility grows each year. In final year you practise as the sole operator under supervision, often continuing treatment begun in earlier years. Across years 2 to 5 the Dental Council counted 1,675 hours of clinical experience: 978 hours treating patients as the operator, 270 hours operating in simulation and the rest assisting or observing.

Under the BDS regulations, every paper uses formative assessment (practice with feedback) and summative assessment (marks that count), through oral, practical, clinical and written examinations. In clinical papers you must pass the theory and clinical parts separately. Barrier assessments, such as pre-clinical tasks before patient treatment, must be passed before you move on.

According to the Dental Council's 2024 report, you are graded at every clinic appointment. Supervisors rate how independently you carried out the procedure, your knowledge, judgement and care of the patient, and your infection control, professionalism, communication and self-management. The ratings automatically produce a grade from A (outstanding) to E (very poor). The system was introduced in 2024 for all four clinical years, and the Faculty planned to review it at the end of 2024.

Exams fall at the end of each semester. In the 2026 calendar, semester 1 exams ended on 17 June and the end-of-year exam period runs from 19 October to 7 November. Fixed dates include the final-year research colloquium on 21 and 22 October and the final-year viva, an oral exam, on 3 November.

To finish the course you must pass every individual assessment in DENT 531, or DENT 570 for Honours. You also need at least 60% in clinical practice and in the final viva voce, which a pair of examiners conducts. Fail one of these and, after remediation, you sit a special examination early the next year; fail more than one and you usually repeat the final year.

If you fail any paper, you may be offered remedial work and a special examination, where the most you can score is the pass mark or your original mark, if higher. Failing it means repeating the whole paper, and you can normally repeat a year only once in the whole programme.

• An E grade in a paper, failing both its clinical and theory parts, or failing several papers in a year normally rules out a special examination. You then repeat the paper.
• Written exams are marked blind against a marking guide, and viva examiners hold calibration meetings before and after the vivas.
• External examiners review internal grades and a sample of clinical reflective portfolios, and take part in the final exams.
• Cultural safety is assessed through reflective journals or a portfolio of patient cases, and through ongoing clinical assessment.
• In 2024, with large classes, individual written feedback was prioritised for students at risk of not meeting requirements, and the whole class received general feedback.
• The degree can be awarded with distinction or with credit.

For years 2 to 4 your clinical work is in the Faculty's Dental Hospital and clinics in Dunedin's Clinical Services Building. Students treat members of the public from Dunedin and the surrounding area, who pay reduced fees because student appointments take longer.

After year 4 the class is divided between Dunedin and the Auckland Dental Facility in Manurewa for the final year. The Faculty follows each student's preference as far as possible, but holds a ballot if more students want a centre than it has places. International students are allocated too, and once the split is set you can swap only into a vacant place, with the Dean's approval.

In 2024 the Dental Council counted 90 final-year students on the ordinary BDS, 61 in Dunedin and 29 in Auckland, plus 10 in BDS(Hons). The Auckland facility is a teaching clinic for final-years, run as a general dental practice with no specialist treatment. Instead of rotating through specialist clinics, Auckland students join teledentistry clinics (remote consultations) for oral medicine and observe in specialist oral surgery clinics.

According to the Dental Council's 2024 report, Dunedin-based final-years spend three to five weeks at Te Kāika, a kaupapa Māori health hub. You see the whānau ora model, which builds care around the whole family, and work alongside health navigators, social services and nurses. The placement combines teaching, clinical practice and reflection on your own biases.

Otago lists dentistry among the final-year disciplines in two optional rural programmes run with Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora, the public health service. The Tairāwhiti Interprofessional Education Programme, based in Gisborne and Wairoa, typically starts each block with a noho marae, a stay on a marae. The Te Tai o Poutini programme places up to 11 senior students in Greymouth and Hokitika on the West Coast. Both run five-week blocks: each week brings three days on placement in your own discipline, half a day shadowing or hosting another student, and shared learning and a community project.

In 2024 the Faculty was still improving after-hours pastoral support for Auckland-based students. A final-year clinical coordinator tracks students' clinical logbooks in real time to keep experience in the two cities comparable.

On the ordinary BDS, the main piece of work you shape yourself is DENT 552 Biomedical Sciences 4, known as the dental elective. It is an 18-point, self-directed research paper with an expected workload of 225 hours, which you set up and run through final year with the support of research supervisors.

You review the published literature on an oral health topic, develop a research proposal, work through its ethical issues and present your plan to staff and classmates. Your findings go into a report written in the format of a scientific paper, which your supervisors assess along with your contribution. At the Elective Colloquium, a two-day mini-conference at the end of the year, you give a 10-minute talk marked by one internal and one external examiner.

All research in the BDS involves engagement with the Ngāi Tahu Research Committee, and BDS students attend the Sir John Walsh Research Institute's Clinical and Research Excellence Day.

The Faculty also runs an Immersion Programme overseas. From 13 to 18 July 2026, six Otago dental students attended lectures, observed clinical practice and took part in hands-on simulation, including virtual and augmented reality systems, at the West China School of Stomatology.

BDS(Hons), the Bachelor of Dental Surgery with Honours, replaces the ordinary final year rather than adding one. To apply you must be in year 4 and pass it with a grade average of at least A-. Admission is approved by the Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Health Sciences) on the Faculty's advice. The Dental Council counted 10 BDS(Hons) students in 2024, around a tenth of the graduating year.

Honours students take DENT 570 Clinical Dental Practice for Honours (86 points), meeting the same clinical competencies as everyone else. They add DENT 572 Dental Research for Honours (40 points), an original research project written up as a dissertation that is examined externally. Both papers start four weeks before semester 1, on 25 January in 2027, and the year is full-time only.

Honours is awarded as first class, second class (division I or II) or third class, based on DENT 570 and DENT 572. If you are placed in Auckland, your project must be one that can be done outside Dunedin if necessary. A student whose progress is unsatisfactory can be required to withdraw from Honours and may then complete the ordinary BDS.

In 2025 the New Zealand Dental Research Foundation funded six BDS Honours research awards worth $12,000 in total. Projects ranged from the Deaf community's experience of dental care to how well general practitioners recognise oral cancer.

The Faculty's Dunedin home is two linked buildings on Great King Street, rebuilt in a $140 million project. The Clinical Services Building, opened in June 2019, holds the dental hospital. It has 215 dental chairs, operating theatres and surgical suites, digital patient records at the chairside and tutorial spaces linked to the treatment areas.

The refurbished Walsh Building holds teaching laboratories, student support spaces, flexible learning areas and the laboratories of the Sir John Walsh Research Institute, where all the Faculty's research is done. Its simulation suite has 80 dental chairs, each with a manikin torso with a removable jaw, dental equipment and a video screen for watching teaching demonstrations. An 1,800 square metre atrium links the two buildings.

The Dunedin clinics handle a large volume of public treatment: over 60,000 treatments a year according to the Faculty's patient pages, and about 76,000 according to the University's Campus Development page. The Dental Council's 2024 review noted that left-handed clinical chairs remain limited, so left-handed students get targeted teaching and workarounds from left-handed or ambidextrous staff.

The Auckland Dental Facility opened officially in February 2021. It has 32 treatment chairs, another chair for teledentistry, a 16-station simulation clinic with screens for watching demonstrations, and a seminar room for up to 50 people. Crowns, inlays, onlays and veneers can be made on site using CAD-CAM, computer-aided design and milling.

Each year starts with a three-day orientation for BDS students. Your first points of contact are year chairs, paper coordinators, programme convenors and the Associate Dean Undergraduate. A Deputy Convenor for Early Learning in Dentistry, a role described as new in 2024, monitors academic and clinical progress in years 2 and 3.

The Faculty's Student Support Officer, currently the Associate Dean International, offers confidential help with issues such as stress, illness, motivation, cultural adjustment and grievances, and links you to Student Health and Student Academic Skills. There is also a Disability and Impairments Contact, and you declare absences from clinic through an online form that goes to your year chair.

For Māori students, the Associate Dean Māori (Manupiki Māori) and a Dentistry liaison at Kōhatu, the University's Centre for Hauora Māori, offer support. Ngā Mōkai O Ngā Whetū, the Māori dental students' association, provides peer support, mentoring and events. Pacific students have the Associate Dean (Pacific) and the Pacific Island Health Professional Students' Association, whose executive includes a Dentistry representative.

Students sit on the Faculty's undergraduate and clinical governance committees and a Student Clinic Improvement Group. The senior team also meets the executives of the New Zealand Dental Students' Association and Ngā Mōkai O Ngā Whetū twice a semester.