NZ Dental Therapy REX study plan

Map every clinical procedure in the dental therapy scope (restorations, pulpotomy, extractions of primary teeth, fissure sealants, topical fluoride, oral health education, radiography where authorised) to the assessment, consent, and documentation steps it requires.

Draft a one-page chairside sequence for a combined examination-plus-treatment appointment, ordering history, extraoral and intraoral examination, charting, risk assessment, and treatment decision.

Practise writing three periodontal chartings and caries chartings from written case descriptions, converting findings into correct notation and severity descriptors.

Build a personal glossary of 40 clinical terms covering caries classification, pulpal diagnosis, periodontal indices, and local anaesthetic technique, testing recall at the end of the week.

Summarise the legal framework governing dental therapy practice, covering scope of practice, supervision and referral requirements, delegation, record keeping, informed consent, privacy, and mandatory reporting obligations.

Explain the informed consent process for a child patient, including who may consent, how assent is sought, and how refusal or withdrawal is documented.

Identify ten patient-safety risks specific to dental therapy (for example wrong-site extraction, retained material, sharps injury, allergy not verified, radiograph mislabelling) and assign a likelihood and impact rating to each.

Write a reflective note on how a clinician should respond to a clinical error, covering disclosure, incident reporting, and corrective action.

Sequence the full infection prevention and control cycle for a treatment session: hand hygiene moments, PPE selection and donning order, instrument reprocessing from transport to sterile storage, and environmental cleaning between patients.

Classify instruments as critical, semi-critical, or non-critical and justify the reprocessing each category requires.

Describe correct management of a sharps injury and a blood or saliva splash exposure, including immediate first aid, reporting, and post-exposure follow-up.

Explain waterline and suction-line management, waste segregation, and safe handling of impression material and amalgam waste.

Rehearse a written hand-hygiene and PPE scenario for a paediatric patient with a known infectious condition, deciding what changes and what does not.

Construct treatment plans for five written paediatric cases spanning early childhood caries, arrested caries, trauma to a primary incisor, hypomineralised first permanent molars, and a child with high caries risk and poor attendance.

Justify each plan with reference to diagnosis, risk level, evidence for the chosen intervention, and review interval.

Interpret ten written radiograph reports and decide whether each finding changes the treatment plan.

Explain when to treat, when to refer, and when to monitor, giving the clinical reasoning for each decision in the five cases.

Design a caries-prevention plan for a high-risk child that combines fluoride varnish, fissure sealants, dietary counselling, and oral hygiene coaching, specifying frequency and review points.

Apply a behaviour-guidance framework to three written scenarios: an anxious six-year-old, a child who refuses to open their mouth, and a parent who declines fluoride.

Draft a motivational-interviewing style conversation script that avoids lecturing and elicits the parent's own reasons for change.

Produce a plain-language oral health promotion handout for caregivers, checking readability and cultural appropriateness.

Explain the evidence base for community water fluoridation and for fluoride varnish, and state how to answer a common parental concern about each.

Work through the operative steps for a primary molar restoration, a pulpotomy, and a primary tooth extraction, writing the sequence, instruments, anaesthesia, isolation, and post-operative instructions for each.

Describe local anaesthetic selection, maximum safe doses by weight, and the signs and management of local anaesthetic toxicity and vasovagal syncope.

Explain isolation and moisture control options and state when each is appropriate.

List the indications, contraindications, and technique for fissure sealants and topical fluoride application, including what to do if the field becomes contaminated.

Write post-operative instructions for three procedures at a level a caregiver can act on.

Build a quality-improvement cycle for a dental therapy service, choosing two indicators (for example sealant retention at review, or consent documentation completeness) and defining how each is measured and acted on.

Describe the audit cycle and apply it to a record-keeping standard, drafting the criteria, sample, and re-audit step.

Explain how to verify and document a patient's medical history and allergy status before treatment, and what to do when information is missing or inconsistent.

Outline the emergency response for a medical emergency in the chair, covering recognition, positioning, calling for help, and the equipment that must be checked and logged.

Identify the reporting pathways for an adverse event, a near miss, and a complaint, and state what each record must contain.

Sit two timed full-length mock papers under exam conditions and score them by domain to identify the two weakest areas.

Re-study the two weakest domains using condensed notes and re-test with 30 new questions per domain.

Rehearse written short-answer responses on consent, sharps injury management, and referral decision-making, timing each to exam pace.

Review every corrected error from weeks one to seven and rewrite the underlying rule in your own words.