Portsmouth Dentistry Interview: Questions & Panel Format

All 50 Portsmouth dentistry practice interview questions

Original MedicHut practice questions. Real interviews may differ.

Motivation

1. Why do you want to study dentistry at Portsmouth, and which experiences have confirmed that dentistry is right for you?

   Follow-up: How have you prepared for the aspects of the course you expect to find most demanding?

   Follow-up: How would you maintain your motivation and engagement during the initial stages of the course if early teaching is heavily theory-based?

2. Dental public health is part of training at Portsmouth. Tell us about a health or wellbeing issue you noticed through volunteering, work experience or in your local community that was influenced by income, transport or the environment. How did this shape your understanding of health inequalities?

   Follow-up: How can healthcare teams balance offering advice on personal lifestyle choices with recognising wider social barriers?

   Follow-up: What challenges might a dental team face when trying to support individuals from communities with limited local resources?

3. A family member or friend says that dentistry is a sensible career choice mainly because of its financial security and earning potential. How would you explain your reasons for choosing dentistry to them?

   Follow-up: What demands of daily dental practice could test your commitment to the profession?

   Follow-up: How have your own experiences or conversations with dentists helped you build a realistic picture of the career?

4. As an applicant to Portsmouth, you are considering how biomedical science, practical clinical skills and behavioural science contribute to dentistry. Why do you think all three areas are essential for effective patient care, and how do they support each other?

   Follow-up: Which of these three areas do you think you would find most demanding during your first year, and how would you prepare for it?

   Follow-up: If your initial timetable focuses heavily on scientific lectures rather than clinical practice, how would you keep yourself motivated?

5. During work shadowing, you saw the reception and clinical team handle a last-minute appointment cancellation with care and understanding. What did this show you about professional responsibility in healthcare?

   Follow-up: Why is clear and empathetic communication just as important in non-clinical interactions as it is in the surgery?

   Follow-up: How might poor handling of a simple cancellation affect a person's trust in the wider healthcare team?

6. Imagine you are offered the chance to join a student-led outreach project delivering oral health education in an unfamiliar community centre. What practical skills and personal qualities would you bring to the project?

   Follow-up: What assumptions about the local area and its residents would you make a conscious effort to avoid?

   Follow-up: What would you do if members of the community were sceptical about engaging with your group?

Experience

1. Tell us about a time in your personal life, volunteering or work when you supported someone who communicated differently from you. How did you adapt your communication to support them?

   Follow-up: What did this interaction teach you about listening and patience?

   Follow-up: How did you check that the person understood you?

2. Tell us about a team project or group task where you were tempted to exaggerate your contribution. How did you handle that temptation?

   Follow-up: How would you handle a situation where another group member took credit for work that you completed?

   Follow-up: Why is honesty about your contribution important when training in a regulated profession?

3. Tell us about a time when you tried to reassure an anxious friend, peer or colleague, but your words made them feel more stressed or misunderstood. How did you recognise that your approach had not worked, and how did you adjust your communication?

   Follow-up: How did you manage your own feelings during the conversation?

   Follow-up: What have you changed about how you offer reassurance to others following that experience?

4. Tell us about a time at school, work or an extracurricular activity when you had to make an important decision with incomplete information. How did you weigh up your options?

   Follow-up: What was the outcome of your decision?

   Follow-up: How would you explain the limits of your knowledge to someone affected by your decision?

5. At Portsmouth, dental students learn alongside dental nursing, dental hygiene and dental therapy students. What would you hope to learn from each of these professional groups?

   Follow-up: How would this collaborative training prepare you for your future career?

   Follow-up: How would you handle a situation where professional boundaries or responsibilities became unclear during a group task?

6. Tell us about a practical skill or hobby you had to practise many times before you improved. How did you adapt your approach, and what did this teach you about learning hands-on tasks?

   Follow-up: Which parts of that learning process would transfer to dental training, and which might not?

   Follow-up: What signs would tell you during training that you need to pause and ask a tutor for feedback?

Communication

1. You are a first-year dental student helping at a university health awareness stand in a local community centre. A visitor demands a yes-or-no answer about whether a sensationalised online headline about an everyday oral hygiene habit is true. The scientific evidence is mixed and inconclusive, and the visitor seems frustrated by vague replies. Explain to the panel how you would communicate this uncertainty clearly while addressing the visitor's concerns.

   Follow-up: How would you de-escalate the visitor's frustration if they continue to demand a direct yes-or-no answer?

   Follow-up: Where would you signpost the visitor to help them assess such claims independently in the future?

2. You are a dental student attending an adult restorative clinic under a tutor's supervision. At a review appointment, an adult patient tells you they could not afford the cleaning aids recommended by the dental team and asks whether there are cheaper alternatives. The patient looks embarrassed. How would you explore their concerns without making them feel judged or blamed?

   Follow-up: How would you involve your tutor while staying within your limits as a student?

   Follow-up: If you accidentally used a phrase that sounded critical and the patient became quiet, how would you recover the conversation?

3. You are a dental student assisting in a community dental outreach clinic. A parent has brought their seven-year-old child in for an emergency appointment because of severe toothache, after missing two previous check-ups. The appointment slot has only ten minutes remaining, and the parent explains tearfully that unpredictable shift work and transport problems make booking routine visits almost impossible. How would you listen to this parent with empathy and explore practical ways to help them access routine dental care for their child?

   Follow-up: How would you ensure the child still feels included in the conversation while discussing these practical difficulties with their parent?

   Follow-up: What practical solutions or clinic resources could you suggest to help a working parent attend future appointments?

4. You are a third-year dental student working alongside a peer in the simulation suite. Your peer is mentoring a nervous first-year dental student on how to apply a rubber dam. The lab session ends in twenty minutes, and your peer is talking very quickly and using confusing technical terms that leave the junior student looking overwhelmed. How would you offer clear and respectful feedback to your peer so that the junior student gets the support they need before time runs out?

   Follow-up: How would you respond if your peer became defensive about your feedback?

   Follow-up: What steps would you take after the session to check whether the junior student understood the procedure?

5. A visitor says they cannot afford to take time off work for dental appointments. How would you explore their practical barriers and invite them to share their priorities, without assuming you can solve their difficulties?

   Follow-up: How would you check that the visitor feels heard?

   Follow-up: How would you explain the next step without promising an appointment or outcome you cannot arrange?

6. You are a dental student volunteering at an informal community open day promoting oral health in an area with low dental attendance. A resident tells you that neither they nor their family have ever attended routine dental check-ups. They ask nervously whether staff will judge or lecture them and seem ready to leave without seeking information. Explain to the panel how you would reassure the resident and encourage them to engage with dental services.

   Follow-up: How would you avoid making promises about their appointment that you cannot guarantee?

   Follow-up: What would you do if the resident reveals they had an unpleasant experience with healthcare professionals in the past?

7. You are a student volunteer helping at a dental reception desk during a busy morning session. A visitor tells you they are autistic and that unexpected schedule changes and unfamiliar environments cause them intense anxiety. They are worried about appointments being changed without warning and want to know how the clinic can support them. Explain to the panel how you would listen to their concerns and find out their communication preferences.

   Follow-up: How would you tailor your communication style if the visitor began to feel overwhelmed during the conversation?

   Follow-up: How would you work with the visitor to identify helpful adjustments?

8. You are a prospective dental applicant shadowing a general dental practitioner during work experience. The dentist briefly leaves you alone with an adult patient who is anxious about their planned restorative treatment and the clinic running late. The patient asks whether you think a cheaper filling would work as well as the proposed crown. How would you acknowledge their concerns while staying within the boundaries of your role?

   Follow-up: How would you adapt your communication if the patient became more anxious?

   Follow-up: How would you update the dentist about the patient's concerns when they return?

Ethics

1. You are a dental student on a hospital oral surgery placement. An adult patient stops you in the corridor right after a consultation for an extraction, looking distressed and complaining that the surgeon spoke to them in a rude and dismissive manner. You need to report back to your supervising tutor in five minutes, but the patient insists that they will only tell you the full story if you promise not to tell anyone else. How would you listen respectfully to this patient while explaining honestly why you cannot make a promise of total secrecy?

   Follow-up: Why is it dangerous to promise complete confidentiality when a patient raises a serious concern about staff behaviour or patient care?

   Follow-up: How would you guide this patient towards the formal hospital complaints process or the Patient Advice and Liaison Service?

2. You are a dental student running an oral hygiene station at a school oral health fair alongside a community charity organiser. In the crowded hall, you notice the organiser recording the names of children with visible tooth decay on an open paper clipboard for future follow-up. What privacy concerns would you raise with the organiser?

   Follow-up: What parental consent would be needed before recording a child's personal details?

   Follow-up: Who would you contact if severe untreated decay raised safeguarding concerns about a child?

3. You are a final-year dental student completing clinical notes alongside a student partner in a restorative clinic. You have just finished an appointment with a patient who has severe gum disease and struggles to clean between their teeth because of painful arthritis in their hands. The clinic closes in ten minutes, and your partner is rushing to leave, writing in the official patient record that the patient is simply non-compliant. How would you challenge your partner's wording and encourage them to record the patient's physical limitations objectively?

   Follow-up: How could describing a patient as non-compliant affect their future care by other healthcare professionals?

   Follow-up: What would you do if your partner refused to change the wording?

4. You are a dental applicant shadowing a general dental practice. The supervising dentist notices a public social media post by an adult patient showing them drinking sugary energy drinks. The dentist tells the dental nurse that they plan to use this post to challenge the patient about their oral health habits during the check-up. The patient is in the waiting room and is due to be called in five minutes. How would you raise any concerns with your supervising dentist?

   Follow-up: What privacy issues arise from using a patient's public social media post in their dental care?

   Follow-up: How could the dentist discuss the patient's diet in a way that maintains trust?

5. You are a first-year dental student observing a molar extraction in a university teaching hospital. The supervising oral surgeon explains the procedure to an anxious adult patient, who agrees to have the tooth removed. The patient then quietly tells you that they feel uncomfortable having students watching in the room. The clinic is running fifteen minutes behind schedule, and the surgeon is preparing to begin. As a student, how would you respond?

   Follow-up: What is the difference between agreeing to treatment and agreeing to student observation?

   Follow-up: Why is it important that a patient never feels pressured to accept student observers to receive their care?

6. You are a first-year dental student working with classmates in a dental school seminar room. The group is preparing for a communication skills assessment about managing nervous patients. One classmate suggests displaying a real patient's private message about dental anxiety, sent to the dental hospital, without seeking consent or removing personal names. The study session must finish in twenty minutes before the next tutorial begins. What ethical concerns would sharing this message raise?

   Follow-up: How would you respond to the classmate's suggestion?

   Follow-up: What alternative resources could the study group create or use to practise their communication skills safely?

7. You are a sixth-form applicant on work experience observing a consultation at an NHS dental practice, with a dental nurse present. The dentist discusses a private ceramic crown and an NHS filling as possible options for a broken tooth. The patient looks embarrassed and says they cannot afford the private option. They turn to you and ask whether they should feel obliged to choose it. As a work-experience student who cannot give clinical advice, how would you respond respectfully?

   Follow-up: How could the dentist check that the patient is making an informed choice?

   Follow-up: How would you respond if the patient told you they felt pressured but did not want you to tell the dentist?

8. You are a dental applicant shadowing at a general dental clinic. The practice manager announces a promotional scheme where adult patients are entered into a luxury prize draw only if they agree to pay for a private fluoride application during their routine examination. The dental nurse privately worries that this may influence patients unfairly. What ethical concerns does this incentive raise about voluntary consent and patient choice?

   Follow-up: How would you raise your concerns with the practice manager in your role as a shadowing applicant?

   Follow-up: How could the practice encourage preventive oral health care without using financial or material incentives?

Dental team

1. You are an applicant on work experience in an NHS dental clinic. A dental nurse tells the supervising dentist that the next patient has severe hearing loss and is booked for a routine filling in a fifteen-minute slot. The nurse is concerned that this will not allow enough time for accessible explanations and checking understanding, but the morning clinic is already running fifteen minutes late. Your supervising dentist asks for your thoughts as an observer. What should the team consider when meeting this patient's communication needs?

   Follow-up: What are the limits of your role as a work-experience student in this situation?

   Follow-up: What could happen to patient safety and trust if reasonable adjustments for communication are rushed or ignored?

2. You are a first-year dental student on clinical placement in a hospital dental department. The supervising dentist has just told a patient that a deeply infected tooth cannot be saved and needs to be extracted. The patient begins to cry. The dentist needs to complete clinical records before the next patient arrives in ten minutes, while the dental nurse offers tissues. The patient turns to you and asks for support. What would you say to support the patient while staying within your role as a student?

   Follow-up: How would you work with the dental nurse to protect the patient's privacy?

   Follow-up: What would you do if the patient asked you whether extraction was really necessary?

3. You are a sixth-form dentistry applicant on work experience at a dental practice. The practice manager has set up a shared email inbox for all patient messages, including urgent queries about bleeding after tooth extractions. It is a busy Monday morning, and no one has been assigned to monitor the inbox continuously. As an observer, what patient safety concerns would you raise with your supervisor?

   Follow-up: What would you ask your supervisor about how urgent messages are identified and passed to the appropriate team member?

   Follow-up: How would you check whether patients have clear information about accessing urgent help outside normal working hours?

4. You are an applicant shadowing in the sterilisation room of a dental practice. A trainee dental nurse tells the senior dental nurse that they are unsure whether a batch of instruments passed the required safety check. The supervising dentist is waiting for those instruments, and the appointment is running late. Afterwards, the trainee asks you whether they were right to speak up despite the delay. How would you respond to the trainee?

   Follow-up: How can a dental team encourage staff to raise safety concerns without fear of blame?

   Follow-up: If you were unsure whether senior staff had addressed the concern, how would you raise this while staying within your role as an applicant?

5. You are a dental student shadowing a practice management team as they plan an oral health outreach event in a diverse neighbourhood. The practice wants to partner with local community groups, charities and religious centres to reach residents who rarely visit the dentist, but budget and time are limited. How would you help the team choose suitable partner organisations fairly?

   Follow-up: How could the practice build an equal partnership with the chosen organisations?

   Follow-up: What realistic measures would you use to evaluate the event’s success?

Public health

1. You are a first-year dental student attending a public health seminar with your peers. A local health organisation presents an oral health awareness campaign and claims it has reduced dental disease in the area, using high view counts and social media impressions as evidence. Your tutor asks your group to critique the campaign's evaluation. Discuss why these engagement figures are insufficient to support the organisation's claim.

   Follow-up: What evidence would help establish whether the campaign had reduced dental disease in the area?

   Follow-up: What ethical issues should the organisation consider when collecting data from the community?

2. You are a sixth-form student on work experience at a community dental service launching a health promotion project. The management team plans to replace all printed preventive advice leaflets with posters displaying QR codes that link to an online portal. The practice manager asks for your view. Explain to the panel who might be disadvantaged by this approach and suggest alternative ways to ensure the information reaches everyone.

   Follow-up: How would you gather feedback from local service users before introducing this change?

   Follow-up: How would you assess whether the project is reaching the whole community?

3. You are a prospective dental student shadowing a public health dental team in a fictional rural community. These invented practice figures cover January to June in the same year. In April, the council introduced a subsidised community minibus for older residents attending GP appointments, but excluded routine dental check-ups. The dental team also doubled its available routine appointments in April by expanding its afternoon clinics. The graph shows monthly booking records for residents aged 65 and over without a car. The dental team notes that missed appointments roughly doubled from April. Look at the graph below. What would you consider when interpreting these figures and suggesting how the team could assess the impact of excluding dental appointments from the transport scheme?

   Follow-up: What additional information would help you distinguish transport barriers from other reasons for missed appointments?

   Follow-up: Which groups might be particularly affected by the exclusion, and how could their views inform discussions with the council?

4. You are a dental applicant shadowing a community dental team running a Saturday mobile clinic project. The lead dental officer is discussing plans to park a dental bus outside a local leisure centre to provide oral health screening for underserved adults. The team only has twenty minutes to finalise the location and promotional flyers before the public health committee meeting starts. How might this outreach plan unintentionally exclude people with language, transport, or physical disability barriers?

   Follow-up: What practical steps could the community dental team take to consult local support groups about these access needs?

   Follow-up: How would you ensure information about the mobile clinic reaches non-English speakers without relying only on printed flyers?

5. You are a dental school applicant attending a public health discussion where a consultant presents a fictional practice dataset for two neighbouring towns, each with 5,000 children aged under six throughout 2023 to 2025. The chart counts reported hospital episodes involving tooth extractions under general anaesthetic for children under six living in each town, rather than individual children. In 2025, Town A recorded 40 episodes and Town B recorded 120. Town B's reporting expanded from one hospital to two in January 2024, while Town A's reporting covered all relevant hospitals throughout. The panel has fifteen minutes left to agree on priorities for an upcoming local health board inquiry. Look at the graph below. Which possible factors would you suggest investigating to understand this difference without making assumptions or blaming families?

   Follow-up: How might differences in public transport, water fluoridation, or NHS dental practice availability explain this gap?

   Follow-up: As a work-experience student, what would you consider when speaking to parents in the higher-extraction area to help build trust?

Dexterity

1. You are a dental student at a student craft club, making a reusable-putty model with a friend. They say they are frustrated because their model keeps becoming uneven and ask for help. The club finishes in ten minutes. What would you ask to understand the difficulty, and what check would you suggest?

   Follow-up: How would you support another attempt without taking over?

   Follow-up: How would you give feedback that is specific and encouraging?

2. Before spoken practice, draw an L-shape made from three joined squares on paper. Study it for 30 seconds, cover it and copy it onto a fresh sheet from memory. Compare the orientation and proportions. What errors did you notice, and what strategy would you use for a second attempt?

   Follow-up: How could you distinguish a memory error from a drawing error?

   Follow-up: How might the skills used in this exercise relate to dentistry?

3. At home, use a strip of card with four holes prepared with a hole punch and a shoelace. Hold the card steady with one hand while the other passes the lace through holes 1, 2, 3 and 4 in order, alternating front and back. No needle is needed. In your spoken answer, describe how the two hands worked together and where you paused to check the sequence.

   Follow-up: Which adjustment made the card easier to hold steady?

   Follow-up: How would you explain the two-hand movement to someone learning it?

4. Tell us about a time you returned to a practical skill after a break. How did you rebuild your accuracy?

   Follow-up: What checks or feedback helped you judge your progress?

   Follow-up: How would you recognise that you needed further practice before a harder task?

Teamwork

1. You are a sixth-form student and secretary of your school's charity fundraising committee. The committee has thirty minutes left to agree on a venue and budget for an event, but two members are debating minor poster design choices. If these decisions are not made today, the venue booking will be lost. How would you help the group refocus and reach an agreement in time?

   Follow-up: How would you make sure minor, unresolved points are noted down so the group can return to them later?

   Follow-up: How would you help the committee avoid similar distractions at future meetings?

2. You are a first-year dental student delivering a group presentation on communication skills with your peers. While speaking in front of your cohort, one of your teammates becomes flustered and forgets their section of the presentation. How would you support your teammate in that moment without embarrassing them or taking over their role?

   Follow-up: How would you find out afterwards what kind of support your peer would prefer in future?

   Follow-up: What would you do if your teammate later told you that your attempt to prompt them felt patronising?

3. You are a Year 13 student working on a shared science competition project with a group of four classmates. After a long group meeting, the team agreed on a project topic, but the next morning one member messages the group stating they felt pressured into agreeing and that their concerns were ignored. The submission deadline is only two days away, and the group is divided on whether to reopen the discussion. How would you handle this situation and revisit the decision-making process fairly?

   Follow-up: What objective criteria could the group use to evaluate the options?

   Follow-up: How would you proceed if the team could not reach a full consensus but still had to submit on time?

4. You are a first-year student working with a lab partner on a timed chemistry experiment that requires quick, coordinated handoffs of equipment. You realise that you use different terms for the glassware and the stages of the procedure. This has caused a minor spill and is slowing your progress. How would you resolve the communication barrier and prevent further mistakes during the practical?

   Follow-up: How would you manage any tension between you and your lab partner?

   Follow-up: How would you balance the time limit with the need to work safely?

5. You are a sixth-form volunteer helping to run a promotional campaign for a local community food bank. During a team meeting, the project leader proposes using a deeply personal story shared by a fellow volunteer in an upcoming social media campaign to boost donations. None of the team members have asked the volunteer for their permission or spoken to them about how the story will be used. What would you do in this situation, and how would you raise your concerns with the group?

   Follow-up: What details would you consider appropriate to share publicly, and what should remain strictly private?

   Follow-up: How would you approach the volunteer to ask for their agreement if the team still wished to highlight their contribution?

Reasoning

1. You are a prospective dental student observing an appointment attendance audit at an NHS dental practice. These invented practice figures cover June to September in the same year. There were 400 booked appointments each month, with 40 reported as missed in June, 36 in July, 24 in August and 16 in September. The practice introduced text message reminders at the start of August. Until the end of August, the missed appointment count included cancellations made less than 24 hours beforehand, but these were excluded from September onwards. Look at the graph below. What can and cannot be concluded about the effect of text reminders, and what information would you need before attributing the change to them?

   Follow-up: Which patients might benefit less from text reminders, and why?

   Follow-up: How could you make the monthly figures more comparable before drawing conclusions?

2. You are a first-year dental student working on a group literature review for a public health module. Your team has found an article about a small survey linking a daily habit with gum disease, and your peers want to claim that the habit directly causes the condition. How would you explain the difference between correlation and causation to your group, and what further evidence would you look for before drawing conclusions?

   Follow-up: What confounding variables or alternative explanations would you suggest your team look into first?

   Follow-up: How would you handle the situation if a peer still insists on claiming a direct causal link to make the presentation sound more persuasive?

3. You are a sixth-form student on your school's student council committee, reviewing peer mentoring schemes. A student representative presents negative survey feedback from eight pupils and argues that the school should immediately cancel the current programme. Other members are split between ignoring the survey and cancelling the programme without further inquiry. How would you explain the limitations of this survey to the committee?

   Follow-up: How would you ensure that the pupils who gave negative feedback feel their concerns have been heard?

   Follow-up: What practical method would you suggest to gather more reliable data before the next committee meeting?