MDCN Dental Assessment study plan

Map the Dental Surgery syllabus into a checklist of every operative topic you must cover, marking each as confident, shaky, or unknown.

Review sterile technique, instrument identification, and patient positioning for routine extractions and restorative procedures, writing a one-page summary from memory.

Work through 40 Dental Surgery recall questions on local anaesthesia agents, maxillary and inferior alveolar nerve block landmarks, and complication recognition, logging every miss with the underlying fact.

Draft a personal error log template that records topic, error type (knowledge, misread, guess), and the corrective fact for each future miss.

Explain the indications, contraindications, and consent points for surgical versus simple extraction, and rehearse the explanation aloud in under two minutes.

Compare flap design, suturing materials, and post-operative instructions across at least three common oral surgery scenarios.

Complete 50 mixed Dental Surgery and Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery questions under timed conditions, then re-derive the rationale for every incorrect answer.

Identify the five Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery subtopics (trauma, infection, pathology, TMJ, orthognathic) you know least and rank them by urgency.

Summarise maxillofacial trauma assessment: airway, fracture patterns of the mandible and midface, and when to refer, into a single annotated diagram you draw yourself.

Outline the management pathway for odontogenic infection from presentation through incision and drainage and antibiotic choice, and state the red-flag signs requiring urgent referral.

Distinguish benign from malignant oral lesions using a structured description framework (site, size, colour, surface, consistency) applied to at least eight written case vignettes.

Answer 60 Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery questions and record a confidence rating beside each answer before checking it.

Review cavity classification, preparation principles, and material selection, and justify a restoration choice for five written clinical scenarios.

Compare amalgam, composite, glass ionomer, and ceramic on strength, adhesion, aesthetics, and indications in a self-built comparison table.

Practise endodontic diagnosis: pulp vitality testing, periapical interpretation, and working length concepts, checking your reasoning against a written reference.

Sit a 75-question mixed block spanning Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery and Restorative Dentistry and review every item.

Work through fixed prosthodontics: crown preparation principles, margin design, and impression concepts, writing short notes you could revise from later.

Explain removable prosthodontics fundamentals including denture base support, retention, and occlusion, and list common causes of denture failure.

Review endodontic treatment sequencing, irrigation, and obturation criteria, and state the signs of failure requiring retreatment or referral.

Complete 60 Restorative Dentistry questions and group every error by subtopic to expose recurring patterns.

Explain study designs used in dental public health (cross-sectional, cohort, randomised trial) and identify which design answers which question type.

Calculate and interpret caries prevalence, DMFT/dmft, and basic epidemiological measures from written data sets without a calculator shortcut.

Describe the principles of oral health promotion, water fluoridation, and screening programme design, and state the evidence-based arguments for and against each.

Answer 50 Community Dentistry questions and flag any item where you guessed, then verify each flagged fact.

Re-attempt every item in your error log from weeks 1 to 6 and mark those still wrong for a second pass.

Sit two full-length timed mock papers under exam conditions, one early in the week and one late, and compare scores by domain.

Build a one-page summary sheet per domain containing only facts you have repeatedly missed.

Identify the three highest-yield remaining gaps and schedule targeted review blocks for them.

Review the four summary sheets daily and recite each missed fact aloud until recalled without prompting.

Sit one final full-length mock and analyse errors within 24 hours while the reasoning is fresh.

Practise exam-day logistics: timing per question, flagging strategy, and a plan for handling uncertain items.

Consolidate the error log into a final shortlist of no more than 30 facts to review on the morning of the exam.