Dental Interview Programme - Guarantee a spot at dental school!

INTERVIEW PREPARATION CURRICULUM - DENTISTRY

In these sessions, you will be given the opportunity to answer questions & debate about all of the below!

Important Notice: 

While the interview day has fixed timings, timings for small groups are approximate only. These will be arranged at a time of mutual convenience between members of the group and the group mentor. 

All large-group sessions and events will be recorded and uploaded to our secure online platform.

• Students attending dental interviews with a 'group task' e.g. Sheffield will be offered an additional opportunity to practice this.  

Week 1 

Session 1, Small Group: Motivations for Dentistry  [Week Comm. 20th October; 1.5 hrs]

• Discussing how to respond to the question 'why dentistry?' 

  • • Including follow-ups e.g. why not medicine/allied healthcare

• Exploring the concept of reflection in dental school interviews

• Covering how to reflect on your work experience or volunteering, including how to structure answers, important buzzwords and exactly what to pick up on!

• Exploring some of the challenges of a dental career that you may have witnessed and how to discuss them

Week 2

Session 2, Small Group: Dental Ethics & Hot Topics I  [Week Comm. 27th October; 1.5 hrs]

• NHS vs private practice

• Payments and bandings/UDAs

• General Dental Services (GDS) contract & need for reform

• 'Minimally-invasive dentistry' and respecting patient preferences

• Mental health in dentistry

Week 3

Session 3, Small Group: Personal Qualities and Attributes  [Week Comm. 3rd November; 1.5 hrs]

• Outlining the most important qualities of a dentist (including, though not limited to, the 9 Outcomes from the General Dental Council) and how you can demonstrate them in your interviews

• Preparing answers for all the most common personal-attribute and self-insight questions

  • • Note: pre-session work will be provided in advance of this session

    • For example: communication/teamwork/leadership/empathy

    • Greatest strengths & weaknesses/'give an example of a time that you made a mistake'

Week 4

Session 4, Small Group: Dental Ethics & Hot Topics II  [Week Comm. 10th November; 1.5 hrs]

• Antibiotic resistance 

• Phase-down of dental amalgam

• Benefits and drawbacks of a sugar tax

• Water fluoridation & public health

Week 5

Session 5, Small Group: Situational Judgement  [Week Comm. 17th November; 1.5 hrs]

• GDC 'Standards for the Dental Team'

  • 9 GDC Principles (recap)

  • Conduct as a dentist & role of the GDC

• Academic dishonesty 

• Patients giving gifts

• Discrimination

• Framework to answer SJT-type questions 

Week 6

Session 6, Small Group: Dental Ethics & Hot Topics III  [Week Comm. 24th November; 1.5 hrs]

• Structure of a dental appointment

  • Analysing a video of a patient/dentist consultation gone wrong - discussing what makes an ideal interaction

  • Members of the dental health team

• Role of preventative care

  • Role of dental teams in smoking cessation

• Dental treatments and illnesses

  • Common conditions e.g. scale/polish, restoration filling, root canal, extraction, veneer/brace

  • Common illnesses e.g. oral cancers, acid erosion, periodontal disease

  • Tooth whitening & safe practices

Week 7

Session 7, Small Group: Roleplays  [Week Comm. 1st December; 1.5 hrs]

• Breaking bad news clinically e.g. oral cancer - SPIKES framework, ICE (ideas, concerns and expectations)

• Conflict resolution

• Other common scenarios e.g. confidentiality/lost pet/smoking cessation/weight loss/worried relative

Week 8

Session 8, Small Group: Dental Ethics & Hot Topics IV  [Week Comm. 8th December; 1.5 hrs]

• Training and career pathways in dentistry

• Continuous Professional Development (CPD) 

• Future of dentistry (including digital dentistry and teledentistry)

• Dentistry and COVID-19

Week 9

Session 9, Small Group: Inequalities of Oral Healthcare  [Week Comm. 15th December; 1.5 hrs]

• Causes of inequality in oral healthcare

  • Socioeconomic factors, workforce pressures, geographic variation

  • Dentistry and the cost of living crisis

• Ethical & policy debates 

  • Should NHS work be made compulsory for new graduates?

  • ‘Golden Hello’ schemes: financial incentives to attract dentists into under-served or rural areas.

• Future strategies

  • Integration of digital dentistry and teledentistry to widen access

  • Preventative approaches - community outreach, education, fluoridation

  • Sustainable workforce planning

Week 10

Session 10, Small Group: Communication, Manual Dexterity & The Unexpected  [Week Comm. 22nd December; 1.5 hrs]

• How to systematically tackle unexpected questions on the day

• Task based questions & communication skills (e.g. describe a photo/20 questions to guess an object/give step-by-step instructions to tie a shoelace)

• Manual dexterity - how to demonstrate this; what may questions look like?

Week 11

Dental Interview Day - 29/12/2025 - All Day Interview Preparation Event

• Live interview question feedback from Ojas, expert dental tutors & current NHS dentists 

11 - 12 PM

• Motivations & Personal Attributes 

12.30 - 1.30 PM

• Situational Judgement 

2.30 - 3.30 PM

• Roleplay & Communication Skills

4.00 - 5.30 PM

• • • Hot Topics, Healthcare Inequalities & Dental Ethics

Dental Interview Day - 30/12/2025 - MMI Mock Interview Circuit 

• Virtual 6-Station MMI Mock Interview Circuit 

• Personalised, written & actionable feedback

AND (OPTIONAL) 

Purchase at discounted price 4 x 1 hour 1-1 university-specific interview practice sessions/mock interviews

Recommended: attend these in January after the course is complete for realistic simulation 

• Alternative: use these sessions to get ahead on course content for any interviews before the completion of the course in mid-December  

Note: this will be an interactive format. Students will be encouraged to have microphones & cameras on.

An opportunity for Q&A will be presented during lessons. You may also share questions with your MyUCAT Interview Buddy™. 

FAQ: What do I do after purchase?

• Please fill in this form 

• Please do not fill in the form before/without making a purchase!

  • • This may cause delays for everyone & unnecessary and avoidable stress for our admin team

• The Zoom link will be shared with everyone at once, around a week before programme launch

• If you have not yet been allocated your mentors, please wait until the deadline 26/10/2025 before reaching out

FAQ: Are there still any places available?

• Yes, if you are seeing the purchase links above, there are places available!

• If you have purchased the programme, please note that your payment has been registered and a spot has been allocated, even if someone does not reach out to you immediately 

• It may be tricky to immediately reach out to everyone on launch day - information about your mentor allocation will arrive once the programme begins

  • • We will wait for all spots to be given out so that you are matched to the most appropriate groups

FAQ: When does this programme start?

• Mentors will be assigned prior to 26/10/2025. You will meet mentors on Zoom and attend your first session shortly after this. 

FAQ: When does this programme end?

• We will have covered all the important areas and content by end-of December 2025