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The dental hospital's a really great community,
you get to know all the students from all different years
and with your personal tutor and close contact with all different staff,
it means you do know everyone
and if you've got any problems, there's always someone to speak to.
I did a degree before this and you just got lost out there,
you didn't know everybody, barely knew the tutors and lecturers,
and you had no contact
and I was really pleased to go through this degree
and find it is such a close-knit community.
GERALDINE: Even though there's quite a few hundred students,
everybody knows them by their first names
because there's a huge amount of interaction,
both on clinic and in the skills lab,
and in the school office and various different functions.
So we end up building up a really nice relationship.
One of the greatest advantages of getting to know all the clinical staff very well
is that you are often given the opportunity to go and see
how they work,
they show interest in one field they may be undergoing
and it is possible for students to go and watch them.
With me being a microbiologist, a researcher,
there is the opportunity to bring them into our laboratories
and to show them the passion behind what drives me
and show them a side outside from the clinic,
the basic science and research that drives
some of the innovations that end up in the clinic.
SHADI: We start clinics at the end of second year, but mainly in third year.
By then, we've already met
many of the staff that we're going to work with,
so going to clinics for the first time is not daunting.
You know everyone there in the years above you,
so it's very easy to merge into the clinical years.
DAVID: We're still moving ahead with innovations,
so as well as being able to treat patients back in the home base
of the dental hospital in the city centre, they'll also have experience
working for quite large periods of time
out in the community in South Bristol.
MICHELE: And the satisfaction of seeing a school leaver
turn into a professional dentist,
they grow three inches in stature in those five years! It's so satisfying
and you can't fail to get a kick out of that as a professional.
And it happens again and again.
The student interactions, particularly through the personal tutor system,
has been one of the most important things in Bristol
because, from Bristol Dental School,
there are more postgraduates in dentistry
than any other school in the UK,
so it means that we give them a good time,
but we also inculcate in them
a lifelong learning ambition
which is translated into postgraduate qualifications.
RHEA: Once you join Bristol, I don't think you ever leave it.
It's five years of your life
that becomes such a big part of you and everyone around you.
You get to know them so well.
You always feel like you can come back, you'll be welcome.