Careers

Dentistry and oral health therapy provide rewarding and diverse career paths and are health professions concerned with caring for people of all ages.

Dentists are registered practitioners who diagnose, prevent, and treat teeth and gum problems in people of all ages. These include filling cavities, removing decay, examining X-rays, minor teeth straightening, repairing fractured teeth, performing corrective surgery on gums and supporting bones, extracting teeth, and making models and measurements for dentures. They also educate patients how to care for their teeth and gums.

Dental therapists are clinicians that examine and treat diseases of the teeth in children and adolescents through primary to secondary school. They do so under the general supervision of a dentist. This includes preventive and restorative work in deciduous and permanent teeth, some minor oral surgical procedures and initial trauma management.

Dental hygienists are clinicians that assist dentists in the treatment of patients. They provide skilled preventive services to all patient age groups. Although hygienists work in collaboration with a dentist to determine treatment therapies for each patient, they work independently to deliver these services.

An Oral Health Therapist has the skill sets of both a dental hygienist and a dental therapist and therefore has a preventative and restorative focus with patients of all ages.

Government analysts predict that dentists, dental therapists and dental hygienists will continue to increase in demand in Australia.  Once you become registered, your job prospects are excellent.  Most dentistry, dental hygiene and dental therapy students will know if they have a graduate position by December of their final year.

Dentistry PhotoGraduates could work in any of the following:

After registration, you may specialise within a particular area of dentistry that interests you. For example, after achieving your Bachelor of Dental Science, you may study further to become qualified in a specialist area of dentistry, such as orthodontics, paediatric dentistry, periodontics, endodontics, implantology or prosthodontics programs at Master level, or biomedical or dental science research at Doctoral level.