Dentistry at University of Bristol Dental School (A200 BDS)

🎓 Bristol Dentistry Interview Questions & Topics for 2024 & 2025 entry

Several topics are more likely to come up at the University of Bristol Dental School MMI Interview, which can be derived from past Bristol MMI stations, including:

• Manual Dexterity

• Dental technological advancements

• Motivation for a career in Dental Surgery

• Observation

• Problem-Solving

• Empathy

• Ethical Reasoning

• Leadership

• Communication

Bristol will always have some slightly unusual stations. For 2025 entry this is what tasks they asked you to prepare in advance:

Tasks to prepare in advance

• Pasta task: In advance of your interview, we would like you to prepare a model made out of dried pasta. This should be a 3-dimensional model of an animal that represents your personality. You will be asked to show this to the assessors on the day of the interview and answer their questions about your model. If for any reason you are attending this interview at a location other than your home (for example, to access reliable Wi-Fi), please ensure that the model does not get damaged as your transport it.

• Presentation task: In advance of your interview, you need to prepare a 5-minute presentation to argue for, or against, water fluoridation. You will be asked to give this presentation to your assessors. You can use visual aids to support your presentation, up to a maximum of 3 slides/items.

❓  Bristol Interview Questions - Past, Recent & Likely Questions 2024 & 2025 Entry

Motivation to study Dentistry

1. Why Dentistry?

2. Why Bristol?

3. What did you learn from your dental work experience?

4. What qualities of a dentist did you see from your dental work experience?

5. What do you know about the Bristol Dentistry course? How is it taught?

6. Why do you think you will be well suited to this course?

7. Why Dentistry and not medicine or nursing?

8. Tell us about your volunteering.

9. What are your hobbies?

10. What are the negatives of a career in Dentistry?

11. Are there any societies you would like to join at Bristol?

Personal Insight/Qualities

1. Why should patients trust you?

2. Which advancement in dental technology has interested you the most recently? Tell me more about it.

3. What are your best qualities?

4. How do you manage stress?

5. There are many applicants with good grades, why should we take you?

6. What are the challenges currently faced by dentists?

7. Why is delegation important as a leader?

8. Can you provide an example of a time when you demonstrated resilience?

9. Give us an example of a time when you demonstrated teamwork.

10. What are your strengths and weaknesses?

11. How would your friends describe you?

12. How would you handle complaints and criticism?

13. Give us an example of a time when you were resilient. Why is this important in dentistry?

14. What's your favourite medium as an artist?

15. Tell us about an article that you have recently read.

Dental Situations

1. I'm at A&E where a patient comes in with health complications that originate from dental disease. Can you explain how that can happen?

2. What is it called when a dental infection spreads to the jaw and neck?

3. If a patient collapses in the waiting room, how would you assess them?

NHS & Local Area

1. What is the CQC?

2. What are AGPs?

3. What is NICE?

4. What is the GDC?

5. What do you know about how the NHS charges for appointments?

6. What are the NHS values, and why are they important?

7. What is it like to be a dentist?

8. How do you deal with overpopulation?

9. What do you know about the local area here in Bristol?

10. What are the main challenges facing the future of dentistry in the UK?

11. How has COVID changed the way that dental practices operate?

12. How does oral health differ here compared to other areas in the UK?

Ethical Scenarios

1. Understanding of the four ethical principles

2. Should all dentists have good teeth?

3. If you notice that a colleague has turned up to work drunk, what would you do?

4. Who can you escalate concerns to within a practice?

Other Stations including Manual Dexterity

1. Is it necessary to know the chemistry behind the materials you'll use as a dentist?

2. Talk us through this article - what do you know about the authors? What are they arguing here?

3. Photo: the image of decayed teeth - describe what you see here

4. Role play: explain to someone how to tie shoelaces

5. Role play: teach this person how to build this origami plane

6. Role play: the nurse leaves the room to attend to an emergency, and speak to the patient (general talk)

👉🏼 Read more: 230+ Dentistry Interview Questions

🗣️ Bristol Dentistry Interview Tips for 2024 & 2025 Entry

1. How to answer the “Why Bristol” question. Make sure that you can differentiate Bristol from other dental schools in the UK. Model answer - I'm excited to attend Bristol Dental School for its reputation for providing a well-rounded education that focuses on evidence-based dentistry and interprofessional collaboration. The school's Centre for Evidence-Based Dentistry conducts research and provides training in the application of evidence-based principles to clinical practice. Additionally, the school offers opportunities for students to collaborate with other healthcare professionals, such as medical students, pharmacists, and nurses. I look forward to learning from experienced and knowledgeable faculty members, such as Professor Paul Cooper, Head of the School of Dentistry, and Professor Iain Chapple, Head of Periodontics. Overall, Bristol Dental School's commitment to evidence-based practice and interprofessional education makes it an ideal choice for me to pursue my dental education.”

2. Know your personal statement - reread any books or papers mentioned in your dental personal statement and try to follow up on any research that has been done on the topic since. This makes it easier to discuss should this be raised in the interview. These frequently come up at interviews - so make sure you can talk about everything written on your Dentistry personal statement and your UCAS reference.

3. Have examples ready to use: many of the questions asked at Bristol are example-based, ie, they require you to draw on examples from your personal life, dental work experience and dental volunteering to help make key points that the selectors are looking at. As such, it is paramount that you spend time learning about these examples and thinking about different scenarios that you can use at the interview. It is helpful if these scenarios are malleable and apply to questions e.g. being a football captain, deputy head girl or playing in the school orchestra.

4. Personal Attributes - Bristol has mentioned that they will ask you about personal attributes during the MMI interview. As such it is paramount that you go through and learn these. Bristol has asked questions concentrating on your strengths and weaknesses, so ensure you have suitable examples. Check out our 200+ interview question and answer guide for dealing with similar interview questions. 

5. Know the dentist training pathway: this is useful to mention in answers to show awareness about the career in Dentistry - and demonstrates that you have a considered approach. Fortunately, we have created a guide for you to learn about the dentistry training pathway here.

6. Read the MMI instructions carefully - you get enough time to read the instructions provided before the MMI station. Make sure that you don’t miss anything from this. Plan how you will structure your answer in the reading time provided. You must practice MMI questions and ensure you think about your structure for as many questions as possible before your interview.

7. MMI Stations - remember that each MMI station at Bristol is independent of the other. Therefore it is paramount that you try to treat them as such, if you have a bad station, try to forget about it and reset for the next station, this gives you the best chance of scoring well overall. Read our ultimate guide to preparing for Dentistry MMIs here.

8. Know the Bristol Course - we would always recommend doing this for every university that you plan to apply to. It is paramount that you know about the different topics covered each year. How does this differ from other universities? What is their policy on intercalation? Have you any idea about what you would plan to intercalate in at Bristol if you could or need to? If relevant, what do you know about graduate entry dentistry there? Remember there is very early clinical exposure at Bristol - this can be an advantage!

9. Know the local area - Bristol is a diverse region of the UK, with a number of local factors and diseases that differentiate the Bristol region from the rest of the UK. Ensure that you research factors that can influence the oral health of residents of the area. How might this impact dentistry provision in the area?

10. Reflect Well - the Bristol Dentistry selectors love reflection, make sure that you are good at not just stating what you have learnt, but also how this helped and what you benefitted from, and what you will carry forward about this at dental school and in clinical Dentistry. This is especially true when reflecting on your dental work experience during the dentistry interview, or if you are applying with low grades to study dentistry or have taken a gap year before applying to study dentistry or via dentistry clearing.

11. Practice Role Plays: Role plays are unique to Dentistry MMI interviews as they do not tend to occur in panel interviews. The only way to ace these stations is to practice! There are so many different Dentistry role-play scenarios that can come up, it is paramount that you read about tips for answering role-play scenarios. You might want to also consider practising this with a Dentistry interview tutor, or booking a 1-1 online mock interview.

12. Don’t over-rehearse - this is a common theme amongst interview students and is very obvious to a trained examiner. As such, we would recommend focusing on the structure of your answer, and then naturally letting it flow when speaking to the answers, concentrating on the delivery of your interview answers. Read about our top tips for Dentistry interviews here. If you are struggling with this, consider booking sessions with an expert Dentistry interview tutor or via one of our Dentistry Application Packages.

13. Learning about the non-academic societies at Bristol is important and might augment your Why Dentistry question as well as help you formulate an answer to how you will contribute to life at Bristol University. Spend time on their website, or looking at their Instagram for ideas about societies that you could think about joining.

14. Learn dental ethics & NHS Hot Topics - you will likely be asked about dental ethics at a Dentistry interview at Bristol, so there is no excuse not to brush up on your knowledge on these topics. Learn how to provide a balanced argument. Check out some of our free articles on NHS Hot Topics and our ultimate guide to applying to dentistry here. It is good if you have an opinion on them, as long as you present a balanced and well-reasoned argument, which side you choose does not matter but is helpful to have. Check out our bank of 200+ Dentistry interview questions.

15. Learn the NHS Core Values - This can be drawn into different answers about personal qualities or qualities of a dentist, which has formed a feature of stations in the past, and a good understanding of these core values will help you stand out against others. It is important to know about the NHS in general for your dental interviews - read our article here on this.

16. Good dental Practice - Bristol also emphasises knowing the values and qualities of a good dentist, which can be found in this document and are likely to come up at the interview in the MMI stations. This is universal to many universities, and something that we always recommend students cover during their Dentistry interview preparation.