dental hygiene

Hi, I was thinking about dental hygiene. If I get a Bsc Hons degree, can I skip a few years off dentistry? Will universities like the fact that I have a dental hygiene degree, and easily accept my application to be a dentist?

Hi there! Unfortunately no, not at the moment. You have to do the same 4 year grad dentistry course or 5 year undergrad. There’s always be talk about doing a shorter course for dental hygiene therapists to convert to dentistry but this has never materialised! I’m currently applying for graduate entry dentistry with a BSc in Oral health sciences (dental hygiene therapy). It doesn’t give me any advantage over someone with a biomed degree etc but if I was lucky enough to get in I’d have an advantage at that stage for the clinical work that Ive Already learnt. I suppose if you get to interview stage it gives you a lot of experiences to talk about having had the patient contact and been practicing some dentistry so I guess that would look good, but I’m not sure it necessarily gives you an advantage. Hope that helps!

Thank you, this helps so much.
Suppose I did oral health science degree and applied for dentistry but didn't get accepted, do you know what type of career choices I would get.
At the moment I'm confused, should I take Biomed or dental hygiene therapy to get me into graduate dentistry and which one is more valuable in terms of jobs if I didn't get accepted to dentistry?

You're welcome! So if you did a degree in Oral Health Sciences this is vocational and trains you to be a Dental Hygiene Therapist, which is still a great job! You can work in practice, hospitals etc. If you have a passion for dentistry (as I did, still do, but didn't have the grades in sixth form) I would recommend hygiene therapy - however it is very competitive to get into. For example, there were 10 places on the course I did! I'm not sure whether universities favour biomed or Oral Health Sciences when you come to apply for dentistry. In theory, you'd think given the experience you'd have as a therapist that this would give you a better chance... but I'm not sure that's the case. Are you applying at the moment?

Thank you. I'm applying at the moment. I want to do dentistry however I don't have the grades and it too late anyway. I was planning on taking Biomed and then apply for dentistry however few people emphasised the need for work experience for dentistry and that I will have to take my time out of my Biomed degree to focus on dentistry and work experience. Now I have decided to apply for Dental Hygiene & Therapy and was wondering which uni you went to and where else did you apply and any unis you suggest that have low-grade requirements? I'm planning on applying for 4 DHT and 1 Biomed in case I don't get in.

Good luck! Have you done work experience for DHT? I applied to Edinburgh, Birmingham, Cardiff, Manchester and Portsmouth. I got all interviews and offers from Many/Ports/Birm to begin with. Then i was a reserve for the other two.. on results day i got a call from both Edinburgh and Cardiff offering me places there. Ended up going to Edinburgh as it was the only 4 year BSc Hons which still qualifies you the same, i just thought it looked better and meant i had more experience! What grades are you predicted?

Edinburgh has 10 places each year!!! wow, congrats on getting an offer. My problem is that I haven't had any work experience specifically with dentists however I did a short course which looked into oral health, have had exposure to dentists during my time of getting braces and have had work experience that has a lot of patient contact and clinical experience and have talked to dentists about their views and work and stuff . Grades= b's
So are you planning on doing dentistry after, have you finished DHT? How is DHT going for you?

Thank you! That sounds good, I would really try to get some work exp shadowing a dentist / hygienist if you can though as most applicants will have this which would put you at a disadvantage and a lot of unis will want it - you've got some good experience there though! If you're getting Bs at A level you could apply to a lot of places! If i remember rightly i think it's UCLan and Birmingham that have the higher entry requirements - this could have all changed now though. I went to uni from 2012-2016. I always wanted to do dentistry but basically didn't have the grades. I then found the career of DHT and was so so happy to get in for that! I've worked for 3 years as a DHT now and i do really enjoy the job, just the passion for doing BDS has never gone away as I thought maybe it might! (Hence why i haven't applied for dentistry before now!). So I've applied for Grad Entry dentistry this year any more questions feel free to ask

Hiii I’m currently studying in year 12. I’m predicted AAA in bio chem and business studies however, I know I won’t be able to get into uob for dentistry as I only got 1 A*(8), 2 As (7) and the rest were Bs (6s). So I’m planning on doing dental hygiene and therapy. I know this is blunt, but is the pay good and are you limited in the things you can do?