Dental College of Georgia at Augusta University (DMD) Dentistry Interview — Format, Questions & Prep Tips

DCG is the only dental school in Georgia. What does that mean for the school's responsibility to the state's oral health workforce?

Rural Georgia counties without a practicing dentist; the school's pipeline role for the state. Show genuine awareness of Georgia's dental deserts.

Many Georgia counties have no practicing dentist. As a DCG graduate, how would you approach a career decision about where to practice?

Honest reflection. Loan repayment programs for rural practice (NHSC, HRSA), community health center dentistry, the public health mission of a state dental school.

A patient comes to you with a complex treatment plan they cannot afford. You know their condition will deteriorate without treatment. How do you handle this ethically?

ADA ethics: beneficence and justice. Sliding-scale fees, community health centers, dental school clinics, state programs. Document the conversation and offer the most affordable partial treatment plan.

Describe your manual dexterity background and how it prepares you for clinical dentistry.

Specific examples: art, crafts, surgery shadowing, dental assisting, carving exercises. Connect to precision in composite restorations, suturing, and instrumentation.

How does periodontal disease affect a patient's systemic health, and what does this mean for the dentist's role in overall patient care?

Periodontal-cardiovascular link, periodontal-diabetes bidirectional relationship, preterm birth risk. The dentist as part of the broader healthcare team managing systemic inflammation.

DCG students study alongside AU medical students. Describe a scenario where dentist-physician collaboration improves patient outcomes.

Head and neck cancer co-management, oral manifestations of systemic disease (oral candidiasis in HIV, gingival hyperplasia with phenytoin), medication reconciliation.

Why DCG specifically — why do you want to train at Georgia's only dental school?

Georgia ties, rural oral health mission, AU Health interprofessional campus, specific research interests. Not "it's in-state" — frame it around mission alignment.

Do you plan general practice or specialization? How did your shadowing experience shape that direction?

Specific and honest. If considering specialization, name which one and why. If general practice, articulate what appeals about comprehensive care.

You are told that a large share of Georgia's counties have no practicing dentist and that DCG produces the majority of the state's new dentists each year. How would you reason about where DCG should focus recruitment and rural-pipeline efforts?

Connect supply (DCG output) to maldistribution (dental deserts). Discuss pipeline strategies: recruiting students from rural counties, rural rotations, loan-repayment-linked practice. Acknowledge that producing dentists is not the same as getting them to stay rural.

A rural patient who drove two hours for their appointment becomes frustrated when you say the full treatment will require three more visits. How do you handle the conversation?

Acknowledge the travel burden as a real access barrier. Consolidate visits where clinically safe, sequence by urgency, explore teledentistry follow-up and local options. Empathy plus practical scheduling is the DCG-relevant skill.

A patient on the medical side of the Augusta University campus is referred to you with oral lesions noticed by their physician. How would you communicate back to the referring physician after your assessment?

Concise, structured clinical hand-back: findings, differential, what you have done, what you recommend, and clear follow-up. Shows you understand the interprofessional campus as real collaboration, not a slogan.

An out-of-state classmate jokes that they only came to DCG for the in-state tuition after establishing residency, with no intention of serving Georgia. Does that bother you, and would you say anything?

Engage with the tension between a public school's mission and individual choice without being self-righteous. Distinguish a private opinion from a reportable issue; reflect on what the state subsidy is meant to achieve. Honesty over performative outrage.

DCG sits on a medical campus. Describe how a dentist contributes to managing a patient about to start head-and-neck radiation therapy.

Pre-radiation dental clearance: extraction of non-restorable teeth, managing osteoradionecrosis risk, fluoride trays, xerostomia and caries management afterward. A specific, high-value interprofessional example DCG's campus makes credible.

DCG is a comparatively small, in-state-focused class. What are the trade-offs of training in a small public program versus a large private one, and why does the small-program model suit you?

Smaller cohort, closer faculty contact, strong state ties and lower in-state cost vs. potentially less specialty breadth than a large school. Frame honestly around your learning style and Georgia commitment.

A patient quietly tells you they have been rationing their diabetes medication because of cost, which is why their gums keep bleeding. What do you do with that information?

Recognize the oral sign as a systemic red flag, respond without judgment, and use the interprofessional campus — loop in their physician or a social worker about medication-cost assistance. The dentist as a whole-person care entry point.