Unit Code: DNT746

Unit Name: Clinical Practice V

Description: This course is designed to give students foundational skills required to build a career as competent, confident, compassionate, and effective dentists in a private dental clinic or in hospital-based environments in the Pacific. At the fifth-year level, it seeks to provide students with structured supervised clinical sessions for hands-on skills development to bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical skills. Clinical supervisors will provide direct reinforcement and feedback. Further support will be provided through a multi-disciplinary approach with lectures and tutorials designed to develop a cohesive understanding of dental health and treatment.

Over the course of a year, students will be given the opportunity to apply theoretical knowledge in a real-world setting and demonstrate practical skills such as dental examination, diagnostics including risk assessment, comprehensive treatment planning to treat active disease, rehabilitate and reduce risk for future disease, and various dental procedures to complete patient care. The student will focus on completing a comprehensive range of treatments ranging from an individual restoration through to the total oral health care of an individual patient. Students will treat adult and child patients requiring a diverse range of preventative procedures, behaviour modification and treatments for periodontic, endodontic, orthodontic, prosthodontic, and other oral conditions and refer for treatment as needed.

Providing students with exposure to real patients will help them develop strong communication and motivational skills, build rapport and chairside manners, and improve interpersonal skills. It will also enhance critical thinking and problem-solving skills as they individualise treatment plans to match the patients’ needs and provide quality patient-centered care. Reinforcement of the importance of professionalism, ethics, and ethical decision-making in dentistry will allow the students to learn to navigate complex situations while maintaining high standards of integrity and ethical conduct.

A unique component of this course is the time and guidance provided to students to engage in learning outside of the dental school in an area that is of personal interest to them. By encouraging students to engage in a personally meaningful elective project, reflective practice, continual improvement, and lifelong learning skills are imparted. The elective projects and participation in a continuing professional development conference, will allow the student to explore advancements in the dental field now and develop the ability to stay current throughout their careers and stay informed about new technologies, treatments, and evidence-based practices.

Working as a clinician within a clinical environment the student can recognize their role within the dental team and further develop the skills required to lead the dental team and manage a dental practice.

The lecture/tutorial component of the course incorporates great flexibility, with a multi -disciplinary approach to teaching. Each session will probe students to reflect critically on their own performance and identify areas that need strengthening. The lecturer then incorporates these areas into the streams to be discussed in class. Primarily the class is problem-based with all related information provided in earlier years. Teaching is conducted through discussion-based classes, problem solving sessions, case discussions and tutorials. The major theoretical aspect has been presented to students through didactic and preclinical sessions in different disciplines in earlier years of study and this module encourages students to review all previous learning to partake of the class discussion, which aims to integrate knowledge from all previous dental exposure and experience.

Learning Target Outcomes:

Prerequisite: Passed all courses in Year 4

Prerequisite Sentence: N/A

Credit Point: 75

Offered In: Semester 1,2