During placement

It’s important that both you and your student understand each other’s expectations early on. We consider these placements as important learning activities that help to transition students into the workplace. For this reason we expect that the  students will form part of your workforce during their placement with you.  They are expected to comply with staff workplace procedures and policy and to provide care for your patients to the standard you would expect from your staff.

Students will be participating in various activities while with you.  These include:

Direct clinical activity

Taking patient history, provide direct clinical care to a patient, taking radiographs, analyzing, integrating and interpreting test results, providing counseling in oral health, teaching a patient how to deliver own oral health care e.g. brushing teeth.

Indirect clinical activity

Preparing a patient case file, clinically discussing a patient case file with a clinical supervisor, interacting with associated professionals for the management of the patient case file.

Professional activity

Critically discussing with the clinical supervisor the literature which directly relates to the patient care, writing a patient report if not directly involved in patient care (only as directed by the clinical supervisor), providing professional education to the community, completing OH&S inductions.

Administrative activity

Students can attend staff meetings, training opportunities and conferences or CPD events while on placement with you.

Oral Health Promotion activity

Students can participate in organised oral health promotion activities and clinical outreach programs. In consultation with the Subject Co-ordinator, wider ranging programs can be included (such as design, delivery, evaluation activities) with structured support.

Students are also expected to behave in a professional and respectful manner which is also the expectation of the host organisation.

While students adjust to the professional working environment in addition to continuous learning in the application of dentistry, we hope the host organisation will guide the student accordingly.

Questions and Discussions

If at any point, you have questions about the student schedule, student attendance or do need to make amendments to your availability, please contact the Scheduling and Clinical Placement Coordinator via dental-timetable@unimelb.edu.au.

If your enquiry is clinical in nature or relates to the progress of a student, please contact the Year Level Coordinator for the course. Our subject coordinators welcome discussions about student learning and  progress so please email the school if you would like to ask questions or discuss student support or arrange a meeting.

A note about student feedback

Feedback and reflective practice comprise important elements of students’ learning. The more explicit the feedback given to students throughout the placement, the better the learning opportunities for them will be .  Feedback can be verbal during patient care (while also being respectful of the patient/student relationship), can be provided after the patient has departed or as part of a meeting.  We also ask that you provide written feedback which will form part of the students’ assessment processes at regular intervals.

A note about Workplace Risk & Safety