The annual World Dentist Day is not only an opportunity to promote dental health, but also a great chance to promote dentistry and oral health courses to local high school students
At our recent High School Day promoting health careers to year 11 students and careers advisors from 12 local high schools we made sure dentistry was featured, something we were able to do for the first time this year.
Senior dentistry students from the University of Sydney presented to the high schoolers on the pathways for studying dentistry. The students shared their personal experiences of what it is like to study dentistry at the University of Sydney.
In the afternoon the dentistry students led a hands-on workshop for the high school students highlighting the intricate skills required to perform dentistry and providing an opportunity for the high school students to engage more closely with the dentistry students.
According to a national report released in 2022, Increasing Dental and Oral Health Training in rural and remote Australia, attention to promoting dental and oral health courses to rural secondary school students is recommended as a first step in the creation of rural dental and oral health training and career pathways.
Participants in the day valued the sessions:
“Learning about different paths in health from professionals gives me more of an idea of what I want to do”.
“It was very informal and gave me an opportunity to explore more career paths”.
“I loved hearing from personal experiences of young people. The practical workshops were interesting and fun”.
