Dear Professor Peter Reher

The aim of this petition is to bring to your attention the current lack of advanced endodontic, oral surgery and prosthodontic clinic places. The current waiting time to book a patient into these sessions is greater than TWO months at the time of writing this. This is clearly not acceptable for the following reasons:

1. The health of the patients entrusted into our care cannot be compromised. The current situation may have them enduring pain or discomfort for months while they have to wait for treatment.

2. As paying students of Griffith University dental program we expect to be able to perform the necessary procedures to enable us to graduate the course competent to be able to work unsupervised.

3. With the reduction of placement and the uncertainity around when individual students will be on placement it is not possible to book patients so far in advance and be sure that the student will be at the university, and not away on placement, at the time of the booked appointment.

4. It may not be possible for a majority of students to complete the various speciality quotas if they are unable to access the necessary facilities to enable them to achieve completion of treatments.

We the students of the Graduate Diploma of dentistry would like to see this situation rectified as soon as possible by the putting in place of greater number of advanced sessions or increasing the number of students that can attend the current sessions or a combination of both. This problem is only likely to be magnified into the future as the numbers of students returning from shortened placements increases.

While we understand that certain constraints may act against the suggestions we have put fourth we believe that the health of our patients, student access to learning opportunities and the building of our competencies as dentists far outweigh these constraints. Therefore, if the problem is not corrected in a timely matter, further action may have to be pursued. These actions could take the form of, but are not limited to, the following:

- Petition

- Student action, boycotting of clinic or other university related protest