First students to qualify as orthodontic therapists

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Ten successful dental care professionals have just completed the new Diploma in Orthodontic Therapy qualification, awarded by the University. This is the first time the Postgraduate Dental Unit at the University’s Warwick Medical School has run the one-year course and the School is one of a small number of General Dental Council approved institutions offering the course in the UK.

Students have twenty days' core teaching, spread over an eight week period. The first week is spent at the School’s approved training centre, Leamington Spa Orthodontic Centre, followed by a week in the students’ own orthodontic training practice. Alternate weeks are then spent at the teaching centre in Leamington and the student’s workplace. Further training then takes place over the course of the year, with ongoing supervision in the student’s approved training practice.

Clinical Director of the course, Liz Hopkins said: “We are delighted to see our first cohort of orthodontic therapists graduating. Our teaching facilities are excellent and this course is a really exciting opportunity for dental care professionals.”

Warwick Medical School’s teaching facilities at Leamington Spa Orthodontic Centre include a state-of-the-art clinical skills laboratory, linked to a lecture room with a camera and video link to a surgery. This enables hands-on demonstrations to students of all types of clinical procedures. The first cohort of orthodontic therapists will graduate on October 29 in a special ceremony being held at The University of Warwick.

Notes to Editors

For more information, contact Kelly Parkes-Harrison, University of Warwick, 02476 150483, 07824 540863, k.e.parkes@warwick.ac.uk