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UMelb UMelb Dentistry: Entry Questions and Discussion

theillestill said:
Any more questions more about Melbourne in general?
Click to expand...

I do! :D

Umm, for prescribed textbook for Dentistry course at UMelb, which way would you recommend to get textbooks?

I have looked at the list of prescribed textbooks, and they were heaps.

Can you borrow those from the Melbourne Uni library like you normally do at high school (borrow it for years and then return)? or should I buy all although it would cost more than $1000...

hmmm.
 
For 1st Semester you can probably just use lecture notes.

For 2nd Semester you'll definitely want to borrow the books.
 
hey gihone2000 are you commencing ur BDsc degree this year? LOL nice to meet you! we will be classmates for the rest of the 5 years lol...:lol:
 
hey theillestill
What is the transfer policy in UMelb? I am offered a place at La Trobe Uni Dentistry, is it possible to transfer now? or after semester 1? or after 1 year?
 
I don't know how clear I can be about this. There is NO TRANSFER between dental schools.

Let me explain how the system works. The government gives each school a certain amount of funding depending on how many students they accept at each of these schools. These students are expected to stay at that institution until they graduate. Transfers do not happen, simply because the government would have funded you at a different institution to the one you want to transfer into.

Ex. UQ BDSc to Melbourne BDSc would not happen as UQ got funding to train you, and Melbourne doesn't.

Another factor is the fact that you have different schedules, and the government and the school won't want to waste funding on getting you up to pace with the other students. They would rather use that funding to a) allow for more spots, b) expand their faculty resources and c) conduct research.
 
kramot said:
hey theillestill
What is the transfer policy in UMelb? I am offered a place at La Trobe Uni Dentistry, is it possible to transfer now? or after semester 1? or after 1 year?
Click to expand...
While you can't directly transfer from one dental school to another like theillstill said, you can apply to a different dental school and try to get in competing with all other applicants. Having said that, you won't get any advantage having come from another dental school (in fact, if anything, you might be disadvantaged in the interview as they might prefer to give the spot to someone who hasn't got an almost-identical spot to fall back on), you are very unlikely to start from 2nd year at the new dental school (so you'd have to repeat first year) if you were to get an offer and, in your case, getting into UMelb's dental school in 2010 is impossible given they won't be taking any more undergraduate dental students. Your only pathway would be to finish an undergrad degree and then apply to their grad-entry dental course (which I believe you can do after you finish 3rd year at La Trobe since you get an undergrad degree then).
 
I'm pretty sure for the post-grad dentistry at Melbourne they only mainly accept those doing either science or biomed undergraduate degrees.
 
sup.... im pretty damn interested in this dent thing.... ive always
thought about med, but am now really considering dent as far as
the lifestyle goes... and that i can still do surgery.... : )


So what is it like studying dent? How many contact hours a week at uMelb?

Do u manage to have things on the side? Job etc? bcoz the med students always seem
to say the never have enough time.....
 
Approx 21 hours for 1st year a week, but i think 2nd year will be around 25 hours and it only goes up from there. I've looked at some past exams between medicine and dentistry, and I definitely feel our's is a lot harder as it often involves drawing and what not etc.

During the semester the content's not too bad if you just want to keep up with it (ex. 2 hours a night), but the department still only recommends working 6 hours a week.
 
Hello I have questions about Melbourne Graduate Entry Program and about Australia in General:
1) As I understand dental students at Melbourne do not take classes with medical students. Do they still take pathophysiology of all the organ systems and/or anatomy labs/dissections? Do they have any classes where they fool around-i.e. small groups discussing some physiology cases such as "headache" and a tutor facilitating the discussion but not actually grading the students?
2) What are the differences between Sydney and Melbourne medical/dental curriculums? The only one i know is that at sydney medical and dental students share first 2 years of basic science classes.
3) What is grading like? When you have an exam, can everyone get an A or is there a normal distribution of grades? What are practical/dental exams like? Are you given a patient or a maniquen and graded based on how well you perform the task? If you want to go onto a residency such as Oral MaxilloFacial Surgery, will grades be an important factor? Do dental students also take standardized exams?
4) If you want to do OMFS later and you get accepted into Melbourne program, would you start the 4year medical degree from M3 or from M2 or what? How about if you enter OMFS training at a different university, would you then start medical degree as M1? How about if you just want to go to medical school later to switch professions, would you start from M3, M2, or M1? Is Melbourne a better school if your goal is OMFS or is Sydney a better school for this?
5) What about the research courses at Melbourne dental school? Are students working on basic science projects(with rats) on any topic of biological sciences? And do students get summers off? Is it possible to get paid research assistant work?

6) What is melbourne or sydney like? Which city is best for going to the beach(and I do not want to meet any sharks)? Which city is best for recreational cycling(but over 50km per trip)? Is it illegal in either sydney or melbourne or their respective beaches to sit on a bench and drink wine out of a bottle?

Thank you for answering any of the questions.
 
I know very little about the post-graduate program since they haven't really revealed anything to us yet:

1) Pathophysiology - for what we did, pathology was based around computer assisted learning for basic pathology (ex. Paget's, Cushing's etc.) and we have tutorials with tutors for specific things like oral anatomy, pathology, etc. but it's definitely not based around small group learning.

2) Don't know about sydney - you would be better off asking someone who's gone to both

3) Grading is based on the H1/H2a/H2b/H3/P/F model - which has no correlation with normal distribution. That being said, for most science classes the majority of the class sits at an H1/H2a level, but for dental subjects, around a H2b/H3 level.

4) OMFS is currently being remodelled into being run by the RACDS and not individual universities. From what I've heard, they're saying now you complete your dental degree (5 years or 4 years post-graduate) and then a medical degree (post-graduate 4 years) and apply in based on your RACDS exam results. Not sure which one would be a "better school" for OMFS considering that RACDS will run OMFS programs.

5) Research courses = mostly populational studies and only very few experimental studies since it's very hard to get results in the limited amount of time we have to do research. Not sure about paid RA work.

6) Melbourne's quiet but has apparently got better nightlife. If you want beaches - go Sydney. It is illegal anywhere to engage in public drinking to my knowledge.
 
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