• 40th ANNIVERSARY
• July 2022
• Bulletin

Olden Days

The Evolution of the BDS Programme

The foundation of HKU Faculty of Dentistry pioneered dental education in Hong Kong. Being the first-ever dental programme in Hong Kong and an extremely demanding academic discipline, HKU (the University) took careful consideration in curriculum planning.

Plan Ahead

In 1980, 2 years before the establishment of the Faculty, the University held Curriculum Conference to map out the dental curricula in detail. The first Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) degree programme last for 4 years and 1 term, and each year contained three nominal 10-week terms of rostered teaching.

In the curriculum, preventive dentistry was one of the main themes. Thus, first-year students had to take The Individual and his Environment course, which allowed them to learn comprehensive knowledge about preventive dentistry at the beginning of the programme. It was taught jointly by teachers from the medical department, such as Community Medicine or Paediatric Medicine.

For clinical teaching, the University decided to run as groups to ensure every student could learn clinical skills. Each clinical group consisteds of 8 students with an academic staff being the teacher-in-charge. Besides, an additional teacher/tutor was assigned to each clinical group to meet students’ diverse learning needs. Tutors worked with the teacher-in-charge and assisted in students’ assessment and overall evaluation.

BDS Learning Over the Years

Following the development over the years, students needed to learn advanced knowledge about dentistry, dental treatments, and newly developed dental technologies. Consequently, the BDS curriculum changed to a full 5-year programme and raised the number of clinical sessions for students to accumulate more experience in patient care. Later in 2012, the curriculum turned into a 6-year programme to support the New Senior Secondary academic structure.

Besides, the Faculty has been adopting problem-based learning pedagogy since 1998. It is a student-centred approach that allows students to plan their studies, develop problem-solving and communication skills, and combine their knowledge across different subjects.

In the beginning, dental students spent most of their time learning at the Prince Philip Dental Hospital. With the advancement of the curriculum, students now have more opportunities for clinical enrichment at the HKU Department of Medicine, Oral Maxillofacial Surgery & Dental Unit of Queen Mary Hospital, and in dental clinics in Hong Kong and overseas.