The department of Odontology is one of 14 departments within the Faculty of Medicine, Umeå University. The department has 60 employees and approximately 500 undergraduate students in three programs – the dentistry program (5 years), the dental hygiene program (3 years) and the dental technology program (3 years) and around 12 postgraduate students.
Our syllabus has always the student´s perspective in focus with the following keywords as guidelines: holistic and scientific view, collaboration, integration, and skill. The clinical part of the education for dentists and dental hygienists is in collaboration with the Public Dental health service, the students thus have the opportunity to practice on a broad spectra of patients in all ages.
The dentistry programme and research in odontology was established in Umeå in 1956. Although Umeå University was founded in 1963, it was not until the year after that the former College of Dentistry in Umeå joined the university to create its first faculty of odontology.
In 1985 the Swedish state and the council for Västerbotten County agreed that the county's department of oral public health would oversee dental education and research within the areas of clinical odontology. Previously, the Swedish state had its own department of oral public heath concerned with these matters. In 1999, the faculty of medicine and a portion of the faculty of the former College of health, medicine and odontology came together to build the Faculty of Odontology. A large portion of odontological research and education is currently tied to the Department of Odontology.
