Queen Mary Dentistry Interview: Questions & Panel Format

All 50 Queen Mary dentistry practice interview questions

Original MedicHut practice questions. Real interviews may differ.

Motivation

1. Tell us about an observation or conversation that challenged your assumptions about day-to-day work in dentistry. How did this affect your motivation to pursue dentistry?

   Follow-up: What did you find most difficult to reconcile with your original expectations?

   Follow-up: What steps have you taken since then to keep your understanding of dental training realistic?

2. Dentistry is a profession where clinical guidelines, materials and technology evolve continuously throughout your career. Tell us about a specific occasion from your academic studies or extracurricular activities where you had to unlearn an old method and adapt to new evidence or techniques. What did this experience teach you about your own attitude towards lifelong learning?

   Follow-up: How do you plan to manage the frustration that can arise when familiar techniques become outdated?

   Follow-up: What habits have you built to help you independently seek out constructive feedback and updated information?

3. You are an applicant observing a general dental practitioner discussing treatment options for a broken tooth with an adult patient. The dentist explains that a crown has the best long-term outcome, but the patient chooses a temporary filling because they feel anxious and want time to think. Why does respecting the patient's autonomy matter here, and how does this connect to your motivation to pursue dentistry?

   Follow-up: As an applicant observing this discussion, how would you manage your own feelings if you disagreed with the patient's choice?

   Follow-up: How could the dentist help the patient make an informed choice without putting pressure on them?

4. Beyond job titles, earnings or practice ownership, what contribution do you hope to make to the wider dental profession ten years after qualifying?

   Follow-up: How would your everyday habits and work ethic as a dental student help you work towards that goal?

   Follow-up: How do you intend to maintain that broader sense of purpose when academic and workload pressures increase?

5. Based on your own observations or research, why is thorough record keeping a critical responsibility within the dental team?

   Follow-up: How have you prepared yourself for the organisation and attention to detail needed for this aspect of dentistry?

   Follow-up: How would you maintain thorough and accurate notes when working under tight time constraints?

6. Dental professionals must recognise the limits of their own competence and know when to seek assistance. Describe a specific time from your school, work or volunteering experience when you realised you were not ready to take on a task or responsibility independently. How did you approach asking for help, and what did you learn from the experience?

   Follow-up: What specific signs indicated to you that continuing on your own would be irresponsible?

   Follow-up: How did you ensure that seeking help still allowed you to take ownership of your personal learning?

Experience

1. Tell us about a time in your personal life, employment or volunteering when you had to communicate with someone who was anxious, frustrated or uncertain. How did you adapt the way you listened, and what changed as a result?

   Follow-up: What specific cues helped you recognise what the person was truly worried about?

   Follow-up: What would you do differently if faced with a similar conversation in the future?

2. Describe a time during your studies, work experience or an extracurricular activity when you had to support a group decision you personally disagreed with. How did you support the group once the decision was made?

   Follow-up: How did you put across your own viewpoint before the decision was made?

   Follow-up: What did you learn about collaboration and shared responsibility from this experience?

3. Tell us about a specific setback during an academic assignment, a team sport or a voluntary role. What steps did you take on your own initiative to address it?

   Follow-up: How did you judge whether your response improved the situation?

   Follow-up: How do you decide when to tackle a problem independently and when to ask others for help?

4. Tell us about a time when constructive feedback from a teacher, mentor or peer challenged how you organised your work or solved a problem. What changes did you make in response?

   Follow-up: What impact did those changes have on the quality of your work?

   Follow-up: How do you handle feedback when different people give you contradictory advice?

5. Tell us about a creative or technical project you completed that required fine motor skills and careful visual planning. How did you improve your technique, and what did you learn about developing manual dexterity?

   Follow-up: How did you plan the sequence of steps for the project?

   Follow-up: How would you recognise when fatigue was starting to affect the quality of your work?

6. Imagine you have a week with multiple coursework deadlines, practical skills sessions and personal responsibilities. What system would you use to organise your time?

   Follow-up: How would you choose between two competing priorities when neither deadline can easily be moved?

   Follow-up: How would you keep your stress levels under control during this week?

Communication

1. You are a student on work experience shadowing a dental receptionist in a busy high street dental practice. An adult patient booking a routine check-up quietly asks to see a female dentist and apologises because they feel embarrassed. Other patients are waiting behind them. How would you respond to their request respectfully?

   Follow-up: How would you protect the patient's privacy while other patients are waiting?

   Follow-up: How would you explain that booking with a female dentist might mean waiting longer if appointments are limited?

2. You are an applicant on work experience sitting in the recovery area of a community dental clinic. An adult patient who has just finished a consultation about replacing a missing tooth tells you that they nodded along with the dentist, but they actually did not understand any of the choices and felt too rushed to ask. The dentist is finishing notes in the surgery and has ten minutes before the next patient arrives. How would you encourage this patient to speak to the dentist, and how would you check what they need without making them feel tested?

   Follow-up: What phrasing would you use to suggest that asking questions is a positive step?

   Follow-up: How would you support the patient if they still felt too intimidated to return to the surgery on their own?

3. You are a dental applicant volunteering on an oral health promotion visit with a trainee dental nurse at a primary school. A Year 3 teacher approaches you during a ten-minute break and asks for a five-minute classroom activity about tooth brushing and diet that works for children with very different reading levels. The bell for the next lesson rings in five minutes, so your advice needs to be quick, realistic, and engaging. How would you clarify the needs of the pupils before presenting a practical idea for this five-minute session?

   Follow-up: How could visual or hands-on props be used so that pupils with lower reading ability are fully included?

   Follow-up: What simple question would you ask the teacher afterwards to check if the proposed activity meets their lesson goals?

4. You are a sixth-form volunteer helping at the information desk of a local community centre. An anxious adult visitor says their advice consultation ended without anyone explaining the next steps. They are worried about missing important follow-up dates and feel their time was not respected. How would you listen to their concerns and help them find the right person to speak to?

   Follow-up: How would you check that the visitor understands what to do next?

   Follow-up: How would you reassure the visitor without promising a follow-up meeting that you do not have the power to organise?

5. You are shadowing a paediatric dental specialist in a hospital clinic. A nervous seven-year-old child is due to have a tooth extracted. Their parent looks anxious and asks you how another child you saw earlier handled the same procedure and what the outcome was. The specialist is briefly in the next room. How would you politely explain patient confidentiality and invite the parent to share their worries?

   Follow-up: How would you respond if the parent continued to ask about the other child?

   Follow-up: How would you bring the specialist into the conversation when they return so the parent's concerns are addressed?

6. You are a first-year dental student preparing a group presentation on health promotion with three fellow students. During a planning meeting, you suggest changing the layout of several slides designed by a teammate. They interpret your suggestion as an attack on their ability and become visibly upset. The rest of the group feels uncomfortable, and the presentation must be submitted tomorrow afternoon. What would you say to acknowledge your teammate's feelings and explain your intentions?

   Follow-up: How would you rebuild your working relationship before the submission deadline?

   Follow-up: How would you adjust your communication if your teammate went quiet and stopped participating?

7. You are a Year 13 student volunteering at a health education display in a community library. A visitor stops by your stand and mentions that they do not see any reason to worry about looking after first teeth since they will only fall out later on. You want to encourage good habits early, but you do not want to sound critical or lecture them with complex technical language. How would you explain the value of looking after early teeth in a clear, friendly, and non-alarmist way?

   Follow-up: How would you check that your explanation was easy to follow without sounding patronising to the visitor?

   Follow-up: How would you respond if the visitor insisted that their own family never had problems despite ignoring early oral care?

8. You are a work experience student observing a dental nurse preparing the surgery for a routine scale and polish. An adult patient notices the plastic barriers, disposable bibs and single-use suction tips and expresses concern about the plastic waste. The hygienist is due to start the twenty-minute appointment in two minutes. How would you acknowledge the patient's concern about sustainability and explain why infection control and patient safety must take priority?

   Follow-up: How would you respond if the patient wanted to discuss their concerns for longer than the available time?

   Follow-up: How would you respond if the patient asked whether any dental items could safely be made reusable in the future?

Ethics

1. You are an applicant on work experience at a high street dental practice, shadowing a general dental practitioner. A patient tells you that an adult relative has been booking appointments for them without their knowledge or consent. The patient seems uncomfortable discussing the situation and asks you what they should do. How would you respond while staying within your work-experience role?

   Follow-up: What legal and confidentiality concerns does this situation raise?

   Follow-up: What possible signs of coercion or controlling behaviour would prompt you to raise a concern with your supervising dentist?

2. You are a first-year dental student on clinical placement at a university dental hospital. You are observing a foundation dentist and a dental nurse who are preparing to take routine bitewing X-rays for an adult patient. The dental nurse suggests skipping the standard explanation because the patient had the same procedure last year, especially since the morning clinic is already twenty minutes behind schedule. What assumptions is the dental nurse making, and why is this approach risky for patient consent?

   Follow-up: How could skipping a routine explanation harm the patient's trust or comfort during treatment?

   Follow-up: As a first-year dental student, how could you raise your concern respectfully while recognising the limits of your role?

3. You are a first-year dental student working on an administrative audit project in a university office. While reviewing an electronic logbook, a peer suggests deleting an incorrect entry instead of amending it with an audit trail note. They say this would be quicker and look tidier for your supervisors. How would you respond to your peer, and what would you do to ensure the correction is recorded honestly?

   Follow-up: How would you handle the situation if your peer insisted on deleting the entry to protect their reputation?

   Follow-up: What could you suggest to help prevent similar recording errors in future?

4. You are a prospective dental student on work experience at a general dental practice. While observing a foundation dentist preparing for a wisdom tooth consultation, you review the patient information leaflet. The benefits are in large, bold print at the top, while the risks and complications are in tiny print at the bottom. Why is balanced written information essential for valid consent, and what needs to be improved in this leaflet?

   Follow-up: How would you raise your concerns about the leaflet with the foundation dentist?

   Follow-up: What steps could the practice take to make sure leaflets are easy to read for people with varying literacy levels?

5. You are a first-year dental student on clinical placement in a community dental clinic. During a consultation about complex root canal treatment, an adult patient asks the dental nurse about getting a second opinion from another dentist. The nurse discourages the patient, saying that asking for another opinion would offend the treating clinician. The patient looks flustered and asks you whether it is wrong to seek a second opinion. The appointment is halfway through its allocated thirty minutes. What would you need to consider, and how would you respond within your role as a student?

   Follow-up: How would you reassure the patient about their right to seek a second opinion without making promises about their dentist's reaction?

   Follow-up: As a student, what ethical considerations would you identify when a patient asks for their notes or radiographs to be shared with another practitioner?

6. You are a first-year dental student on placement at an NHS dental surgery. The supervising dentist cancels a patient's filling because a dental nurse has gone home sick, leaving the surgery short of staff. The dentist instructs you to tell the patient in the waiting room that the cancellation is due to an unexpected equipment failure to prevent complaints. What are the ethical concerns about honesty and patient trust in this situation?

   Follow-up: How would you respond to the supervising dentist's instruction?

   Follow-up: How can staff explain a staffing-related cancellation honestly while maintaining respect and privacy for the sick colleague?

7. You are a dental student who has completed a reflective assignment. On the evening before the deadline, a close friend on your course messages you in a panic because they have fallen behind. They ask to read your assignment as a guide, but sharing it risks breaching university rules on collusion and plagiarism. How would you handle this conversation to support your friend while protecting academic integrity?

   Follow-up: What practical alternatives could you offer to help your friend without sharing your completed assignment?

   Follow-up: How would you respond if they became upset and accused you of being unsupportive?

8. You are an applicant on work experience at a mixed NHS and private dental practice. To reduce administrative costs, the practice manager proposes moving all routine appointment booking to an online portal and stopping telephone bookings. Patients would need an email address and internet access to use it. During a team discussion, the practice owner asks for your perspective. What ethical concerns would you raise about fairness of access and the risk of excluding patients?

   Follow-up: Why is it important to avoid assumptions about a patient's ability to use an online portal?

   Follow-up: How could the practice involve patients in finding a fair balance between administrative efficiency and accessible booking?

Dental team

1. You are a first-year dental student on placement at a general dental clinic. The practice manager reviews patient feedback showing that referrals to local hospital oral surgery services are confusing and stressful. Dentists, dental nurses and receptionists gather for a thirty-minute lunchtime meeting to improve how referrals are explained. How can different members of the dental team help patients understand the referral pathway?

   Follow-up: How could the team check whether the new explanations have improved patients' understanding?

   Follow-up: How can the team ensure that explanations are clear for patients who speak English as an additional language?

2. You are a first-year dental student observing in a hospital dental department. The department is replacing paper handover sheets with a digital messaging system between the emergency dental clinic and the afternoon specialty clinics. Your supervisor asks for your thoughts on the change. How would you assess whether the new system improves communication and maintains patient safety?

   Follow-up: How could the department support staff who find the new system difficult to use?

   Follow-up: What would you do if you noticed important patient information was missing from a handover?

3. You are an applicant on work experience shadowing a general dental practitioner. An elderly patient attends for a routine review after a recent surgical extraction at a hospital dental clinic. The hospital has not provided a discharge summary or a named clinician contact. The appointment is twenty minutes long, and the patient cannot recall the instructions about their stitches and healing. The patient asks you why the practice does not have this information and what they should do. What coordination risks would you recognise, and how would you respond within your role as a work-experience student?

   Follow-up: How would you raise your concerns with the supervising dentist without giving clinical advice or making promises to the patient?

   Follow-up: From what you have observed or learned, how could communication between hospital dental services and general dental practices be improved to prevent missing handovers?

4. You are a first-year dental student on placement at an NHS community dental clinic. A receptionist tells you that an adult patient has missed their last two 9:00 am appointments for gum disease treatment because rural buses do not run early enough. In this scenario, the clinic's policy is to discharge patients after three consecutive missed appointments. The clinical lead asks for your thoughts on how the team could address this patient's travel barrier before another appointment is missed. What would you consider when responding, while staying within your role as a student?

   Follow-up: How could you learn from the receptionist about the patient's travel difficulties while respecting confidentiality?

   Follow-up: If afternoon appointments are fully booked, what would you suggest the team consider when discussing the situation fairly and honestly with the patient?

5. You are a dental applicant observing a hygiene session in an NHS practice. The supervising dentist is using a noisy ultrasonic scaler and high-volume suction to clean a patient's teeth. The dental nurse notices that the patient looks anxious and cannot hear the instructions over the equipment. The clinic is running fifteen minutes late. As an observer, how would you raise your concerns with the supervising team, and what communication needs would you ask them to consider?

   Follow-up: What non-verbal signs might help you recognise that a patient is anxious or struggling to understand?

   Follow-up: How might time pressures affect communication within the dental team?

Public health

1. You are a dental student taking part in a local health policy planning exercise with council officers. The committee has a fixed budget and must decide whether to allocate resources to a long-term dental workforce recruitment drive or a short-term community outreach campaign. Some panel members want immediate public visibility, whereas others argue for building sustainable local capacity over the coming decade. How would you evaluate the differing time horizons of these approaches, and what criteria would you use to guide the final decision?

   Follow-up: How would you measure the success of an outreach initiative beyond simple attendance figures?

   Follow-up: Why might long-term recruitment efforts be harder to justify to local funders than short-term campaigns?

2. You are a first-year dental student assisting on a community oral health placement at a primary school. The supervising community dental team has introduced a daily toothbrushing programme. Several pupils with sensory sensitivities refuse to take part because of strong mint flavours and bristled brushes. Teachers have only fifteen minutes during morning registration to run the activity and feel rushed. Your supervisor asks for your observations. What would you need to consider when discussing how to make the programme more inclusive, while staying within your role as a student?

   Follow-up: How would you respond if a parent asked you which toothbrush or toothpaste their child should use?

   Follow-up: How would you seek feedback from children, parents and teachers about whether they feel included and supported?

3. You are a prospective dental applicant spending a week with a community dental public health team. The team is reviewing a local council oral health campaign in an area where many older adults suffer from severe gum disease and tooth loss. The promotional posters and leaflets only feature photographs of young children brushing their teeth. How might this imagery affect how adult patients in the community engage with the service?

   Follow-up: How could the public health team balance promotional messages so both children and adults feel included?

   Follow-up: What methods could the team use to measure whether adult residents are actually taking up dental services after seeing the campaign?

4. You are a first-year dental student observing a regional service review meeting alongside local practice managers. One manager claims their waiting list management is more effective than a neighbouring clinic's based on headline waiting list numbers. Neither practice has checked whether they use the same criteria for urgency and clinical priority. How would you explain why this comparison is unreliable, and what steps would help ensure a fair evaluation?

   Follow-up: How would you respond if the manager dismissed your concern?

   Follow-up: What could be the consequences for patients if service decisions were based on this comparison?

5. You are a dental applicant observing an audit meeting at a busy NHS dental hospital. This fictional audit counts booked routine appointments and missed appointments from January to April, with a missed appointment defined as a patient neither attending nor cancelling. Evening appointments were introduced in February. Some daytime sessions also closed for staff training during this period. The manager says missed appointments fell from 100 in January to 80 in April and puts this down entirely to the evening appointments. The team needs to evaluate whether evening appointments improved attendance before submitting its report. Look at the graph below. What should the team consider before concluding that evening appointments caused the improvement?

   Follow-up: Which figures would you work out from the graph to check the manager's claim, and what do they show?

   Follow-up: What further information would help you assess whether evening appointments improved access for different patient groups?

Dexterity

1. Before spoken practice, draw a line of six approximately equal 1 cm squares freehand in good lighting. Inspect the corners and spacing with a ruler afterwards, then repeat after adjusting your seating or paper position. In your answer, explain what changed and which errors remained. This home exercise is not a claimed Queen Mary interview task.

   Follow-up: Which workspace adjustment helped you control the pencil?

   Follow-up: How would you avoid overstating the effect of a single successful attempt?

2. Describe a practical project that looked neat but did not work as intended when you tested it. How did you find the weak point?

   Follow-up: What improvement did you make to solve the problem?

   Follow-up: How did you check whether that improvement had worked?

3. You and a partner each have a sheet of paper and a pencil. On yours, draw a large rectangle with a small circle inside its top-left corner and a diagonal line from bottom-left to top-right. Describe your drawing to your partner without showing it, then compare their copy with yours. If alone, test a recording instead.

   Follow-up: Which instruction would you revise to make your description clearer?

   Follow-up: How would you establish which side counts as left before starting?

4. Describe an occasion when you received praise for explaining a practical task but criticism about the accuracy of your own work. If this has not happened, use a real example of practical feedback and state that clearly. What did you change in response?

   Follow-up: Why would a clear explanation not by itself demonstrate an accurate practical technique?

   Follow-up: How could you check whether the changes you made had improved your practical work?

Teamwork

1. You are a first-year dental student working on a team research project investigating oral health habits. Your findings contradict the team's original hypothesis. Two team members worry about receiving a lower mark and suggest altering the interpretation to fit the initial prediction. How would you support accurate reporting while keeping the team working well together?

   Follow-up: How could the team check that its interpretation is supported by the data?

   Follow-up: How could the team explain the unexpected results clearly in its final presentation?

2. You are a first-year dental student working in a team of four to design an oral health exhibition stand for freshers week. A teammate wants to use an interactive game to present messages about brushing habits, while you favour a visual display. The deadline is tomorrow, and your disagreement is holding up the team. How would you resolve the disagreement while maintaining a good working relationship?

   Follow-up: What objective criteria could you and your teammate use to evaluate both approaches fairly?

   Follow-up: How would you handle the situation if you both still could not agree and the project deadline was only hours away?

3. You are a sixth-form student volunteering at a local community centre during a weekend food bank session. A new volunteer has just been asked to manage the main reception and register visitors, but they have received no training and look visibly overwhelmed. The coordinator is busy elsewhere, and long queues are starting to form outside. What would you do to support this volunteer while ensuring the visitors receive a smooth and welcoming service?

   Follow-up: How would you find out what help the volunteer needs without making them feel incapable or embarrassed?

   Follow-up: What would you do if your attempt to assist was met with defensiveness or seen as interfering?

4. You are a first-year dental student serving on a student society committee that is planning a series of study skills workshops for prospective university applicants. During the planning meeting, you realise that none of the workshop topics or formats have been discussed with actual applicants, and the committee members are relying purely on their own assumptions. The venue deposit must be paid by the end of the week, so any changes to the schedule need to be agreed quickly. How would you persuade the committee to consult prospective attendees before finalising the event?

   Follow-up: What methods would you use to gather meaningful feedback from prospective attendees within such a short timeframe?

   Follow-up: How would you ensure that the feedback you collect represents a wide range of students?

5. You are a first-year dental student working on a group research project. During your online meetings, one student is repeatedly interrupted by a more dominant teammate and has stopped speaking up. What practical steps would you take during and between meetings to ensure everyone can contribute fairly?

   Follow-up: What would you do if the dominant teammate dismissed your suggestions?

   Follow-up: How would you assess whether your approach had improved participation in the group?

Reasoning

1. You are a first-year dental student evaluating a public report on a local community project for your tutor group. The project distributed five thousand toothbrushes to university halls of residence and claims success based only on that number. What information is missing, and what outcomes would help you judge its impact?

   Follow-up: How would you gather reliable evidence about the project's impact?

   Follow-up: How would you assess whether the resources spent on distributing toothbrushes could have achieved a greater long-term impact elsewhere?

2. You are an applicant shadowing a dentist during a morning consultation clinic. A patient shows the dentist an online advertisement claiming that a charcoal toothpaste removes all stains without damaging enamel. The advertisement cites a university study, but the dentist explains that it used plastic teeth in a laboratory dish and did not involve patients. The dentist has ten minutes before the next appointment to address the patient's questions. Why is it important to recognise the limitations of laboratory studies when discussing treatments with patients?

   Follow-up: What physiological factors in the human mouth, such as saliva or gum tissue, cannot be replicated on a plastic laboratory model?

   Follow-up: How can a dental team explain the difference between laboratory findings and real-world clinical evidence without sounding dismissive to a patient?

3. What perspectives, skills or values would you bring to our diverse student community? Give an example from your experience of supporting and working with peers from different backgrounds.

   Follow-up: How have you adapted your communication style when working with someone whose experiences were very different from yours?

   Follow-up: What steps would you take to ensure that everyone in your tutor group feels included and respected?