CQUni's new Oral Health degree praised for 'filling a gap'
Published on 26 April, 2012
CQUniversity has been praised in Federal Parliament for filling a gap created when another university withdrew oral health courses in favour of dentistry, leaving Queensland with only one oral health program in Brisbane.
Member for Capricornia Kirsten Livermore recently informed Parliament of the new Bachelor of Oral Health degree provided by CQUniversity.
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"Graduates from the oral health program will be oral health therapists, qualified to perform preventative and operative dentistry-things like examination, risk assessment, diagnosis of periodontal disease and dental care, scaling and cleaning, and oral hygiene instruction," Ms Livermore said.
"The program has strong links into the sector with clinical placements being made available within Queensland Health, including access to two dental chairs in the school dental service and access to two chairs at the community dental clinic at the base hospital.
"An additional 12 dental chairs will be located at the CQUniversity public health clinic. The public health clinic is central to the University's major investment in allied health and it is something I am pleased to say has been strongly supported by our government.
"This clinic ... will allow us to train our own home-grown allied health professionals with a much higher chance that they will stay and practice in the region and relieve the chronic shortages that we have suffered in so many areas of health care."
Ms Livermore noted that a former federal MP who is now the Oral Health Discipline Leader - Associate Professor Leonie Short - had guided the new course through its accreditation "and now has the satisfaction of overseeing the progress of those 28 new oral health students".
Oral Health students Emma Odgaard, Kate Vinnicombe and Ariane Anderson 
Part of the Oral Health laboratory equipment