How to Prepare for BDS Final Year Exam

- Dr. Zahra Munir

Final Year is a very beautiful end of a journey that you’ll all cherish for life. Make sure to find and maintain balance between studies and extracurricular events throughout the year. The final year syllabus is extremely long and you should start studying early on. But don’t miss out on any events because it’s the last time you’re going to be a part of them. Make great memories. Ensure that you perform your quotas in all the departments with keen interest because they’ll provide you the clinical experience and knowledge needed to understand and go through your syllabus. There’d be a lot of peace and a lot less tears if you perform your rotations with honesty. 

 

Orthodontics: 

Books: 

Contemporary Orthodontics by Profitt (6th edition) 

Orthodontics by Bhalaji (7th edition) 

Ortho was one subject where I struggled a lot with understanding the standard book. Profitt is kind of hard to understand for the first time. And then I discovered Mental Dental channel on Youtube. The channel has a playlist on ortho with a video lecture dedicated to each chapter. I’d recommend watching the video first and then going through Profitt. Do Ch 2-6 from Profitt very thoroughly. Skim through Ch 7 and then study the chapter on Retention. Except for the first and last section of Bhalaji, do it thoroughly as well. Growth is very important in ortho. The appliances in Bhalaji are a bit difficult to understand. But have a good look at the appliances they show you in Ortho Department during your rotation. It’d help a lot while studying. Overall, Ortho is one of the easiest subjects in final year and definitely the shortest one. It is a subject you should aim for a distinction in.  

 

Also, do learn the landmarks and measurements of Lateral Ceph during your rotation. It is very important as most of the SEQs require you to diagnose and then suggest the treatment plan.   

 

Operative: 

Books:

 

Sturvedant’s Art and Science of Operative Dentistry  

Grossman’s Endodontic Practice (13th edition)  

Contemporary Fixed Prosthodontics by Rosentiel (5th edition) 

Planning and Making of Crown and Bridge by Smith (6th edition) 

 

Operative is probably the lengthiest subject in final year because it has many sub-subjects. 

 

Operative(Restorative):

Watch lots of videos on youtube to comprehend better. Best advice for operative would be to do your rotation with utmost enthusiasm. I did my Operative Quota in final year to the best extent possible and it took me no time to cover the Amalgam Section. Try to do or at least observe one endo. Buy the South Asian edition of Art and Science. I had the International Edition and it took me a lot of time to revise and go through the book before the exam. The International Edition has a lot of repetition and has no extra information as compared to the South Asian one. 

Endodontics:

I did Grossman for endo. I’m not someone who follows markings so I did the entire book. I didn’t learn the chapters which seemed irrelevant though ( the one on Scope of endo and Lasers in endo). If you do endo from Grossman, get Ch5 of Taurabinejiad photocopied and go through it thoroughly. It’ll help you build the basics of Diagnosis in Endodontics. Taura is also an amazing book on endo. Skim through them both and do the one which seems more suited to your study style.  

 

Crown and Bridge:

I did Crown from Rosential and made notes. I only went through the notes later on. And I did the Bridge section from Smith. Learn the advantages, disadvantages, indications and contraindications of each type of crown from the tables provided at the end of each chapter in Rosential. Supplement your prep of CnB with the file of notes on CnB from BDS Point. 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/bdsmedcom/permalink/2267239400067692  

 

Paedodontics:

Paedo is a very short portion of Operative and there’s only a few concepts that you need to clarify e.g. Apexification vs Apexogenesis, Direct vs Indirect Pulp Capping, uses of Ca(OH)2, formocresol etc. Do go through behavioral management techniques and anesthesia for children. You can study these from Step Up or from slideshare. I did the following slides for paedo.  

 

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/lf7kcrc9eucux/Pedodontics.13_PM 

 

Prosthodontics: 

Books:  

McCracken’s Removable Partial Prosthodontics (12th edition)  

Prosthodontic Treatment for Edentulous Patients by Zarb (13th edition) 

A textbook of Prosthodontics by Deepak Nallaswamy (2nd edition) 

Complete Denture Prosthodontics by Manappallil (3rd edition) 

Prostho consists of two main sections; Removable Partial Denture (RPD) and Complete Denture (CD).

RPD:

McCracken is a bit hard to understand. Don’t worry and go through it multiple times. I could finally understand all it’s concepts after I had watched multiple videos on youtube and gone through the book almost thrice. Once you can comprehend the concepts, RPD is amazing. It is very easy to memorize. Do chapters 1-12 and Ch 16-17 first. Once done with these, feel free to skim through the rest of the book. Learn the components of RPD and their function thoroughly and that is pretty much most of RPD. 

CD:

CD is very easy to comprehend if you’ve done patients of CD during your rotation in Prostho department. Due to Covid, I didn’t get the chance to do my prostho quota. I used to watch videos of clinical steps, lectures on specific concepts and then read the chapters from the book. For CD, I’d advise you to study the CD portion of Deepak Nallaswamy and then start Zarb because Zarb is hard to understand by just reading. Deepak explains CD through a step by step process and it’s easier to make a mental image and understand CD. Once you’re done with Deepak, learn the tables of Zarb. The tables of Zarb are the most important section of your study for prostho. Most of the SEQs in paper are word-by-word tables of Zarb. After you’re done with this and you still have time, read through the first 12 chapters of Zarb and highlight. This will help you in the MCQ section of the paper.  

Dental Pathshala has done an Express Review Series on CD on the youtube channel. Do go through them if you have time and energy. It covers almost all the concepts of CD. 

Misc:

A portion of Prostho that you have to do constitutes of small topics which include Interim Dentures, Single CD, Transitional Dentures etc. Do these topics from Manappallil. I did them from Deepak but I learnt after the exam that they are much better written in Manappallil. 

 

Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery: 

Books: 

Contemporary Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery by Tucker (7th edition) 

Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery by Neelima (4th edition) 

Handbook of Local Anesthesia by Malamed (6th edition) 

Tucker is the gold standard for surgery. It contains immense amount of information and all of it is important. Go through Tucker multiple times. Medical emergencies and Management of patients with specific medical conditions are two of the most important chapters since they are significant for both written and viva. There are some concepts (e.g. Deep Fascial Infections) which are a bit difficult. Please go through Dental Pathshala videos on them. She teaches brilliantly and makes things very easy to understand.  

Trauma is extremely important. For trauma, only Tucker is not sufficient. Go through trauma from Neelima and make notes with small diagrams. Learn this notes and go through them before your exams because going through the entire Tucker and trauma section from Neelima before exams becomes extremely difficult. From the whole of Trauma, I’d say mandibular fractures and LeFort fractures are the most important. 

Local Anesthesia:

I did LA from three sources mainly. The link provided below, Dental Pathshala videos and a few chapters of Malamed. If you do the first two sources mentioned above, you only have to learn Ch13 and 14 from Malamed for anesthesia techniques.  

http://www.mediafire.com/file/isohdfe50k6qvpg/DENTal_LA_orig.ppt/file 

Concious Sedation and GA is not very important but you might get an SEQ or 1-2 MCQs from these topics. Go through these topics from Neelima or find some slides on slideshare to cover them. You should have a basic idea of these topics because they sometimes ask you regarding these in viva. 

 

This is a generalized guide on how I think you should steer through final year. For a more detailed chapter-wise guide feel free to follow Dr Zaid Sohail’s guide on BDS point. I followed it to a great extent and found it very helpful.  

 

I hope this guide helps you. All the best :)