Dental Assisting Certificate
Launch into a career in a growing profession with a demand for recent graduates. A career as a dental assistant offers a versatile, patient-centered role within a collaborative oral health-care team.
Application windows:
- Fall start (August 2025)
- Opens: Jan. 1
- Deadline: May 1, 2025
- Spring start (April 2026)
- Opens: July 1
- Deadline: Nov. 1, 2025
Seats are awarded competitively, not in the order received. *To ensure a quality learning experience, program offerings are subject to minimum enrollment. Admitted students will be promptly notified of any changes.
- 10 months
- 2 intakes per year*
- 5 courses
- 14 weeks of clinical rotations
- Practicum placements
- Full-time, in-person
Looking to start your career in oral health care?
Your passion for helping people can lead you to success. Make your dream a reality by gaining the real-world skills to become a dental assistant. Our courses combine theoretical and hands-on experiences to teach you about oral facial science, dental materials, oral pathology, pharmacology, prosthodontics and other specialized dentistry topics.
Why study at the 黑料不打烊?
You’ll experience small classes in our dental assisting program while getting to leverage the larger Mike Petryk School of Dentistry community of 400+ students.
Our modern facilities include the only full-service student dental clinic in 黑料不打烊. In the second half of your program, you’ll practice in this real-world clinic with real patients alongside future dentists, dental hygienists, and specialists, giving you confidence when you move into your practicum and the industry.
"The excellent instruction and extensive hands-on clinical experience I received have prepared me to enter the dental assisting workforce with confidence and enthusiasm. Regularly assisting dental students in patient care and working alongside clinical staff in vital supportive roles greatly enriched my professional growth. I'm grateful to have been part of the inaugural class and look forward to seeing the program flourish."
- Rukondo, DA grad
"The care and consideration put into the dental assisting program is truly unmatched, and I am truly grateful to have been a part of it. The effort put into developing our skills has me feeling confident and excited to enter the dental field. I feel incredibly fortunate to have learned from our inspiring educators, and I look forward to seeing more and more students enter this program!"
- Zara, DA grad
Being a dental assistant
When you visit the dentist, the person you might actually spend the most time with is the dental assistant. They have specialized skills heavily relied on in dental offices to ensure the clinic runs smoothly and efficiently.
Responsibilities include:
- Supporting dentists, hygienists and specialists during dental procedures
- Performing sterilization and infection prevention and control procedures
- Providing pre-operative and post-operative instructions to patients
- Capturing and processing radiographs
- Assisting with restorations
- Taking impressions and creating laboratory models
- Preparing treatment rooms, dental instruments and materials
- Preparing patients for treatment
- Scheduling patients and other administrative duties
Designations
Dental assisting is a regulated profession in 黑料不打烊. After graduation, you will be eligible to write the (NDAEB) and the clinical practice evaluation. Then, graduates can start the application process for their license to be a registered dental assistant with the .
Source: Government of 黑料不打烊,
Average salary
$50,400 per year*
Employers include
- General or specialist oral health-care offices such as:
- Dentistry
- Dental hygiene
- Orthodontics
- Periodontics
- Prosthodontics
- Oral surgery
- Endodontics
- Pediodontics
- Dental equipment and supply companies
- Educational and research institutions
- Insurance
- Dental public health
A few of the skills you will learn include how to:
- Provide oral health care to members of the community
- Develop a nutritional counseling plan for an oral health condition
- Perform preventive care procedures
- Describe the etiology of tooth deposits
- Complete advanced prosthodontic procedures
- Conduct vital tooth whitening
- Apply topical anticariogenic and desensitizing agents
- Enhance your interpersonal communication and employment skills
- Work collaboratively with the oral health-care team
Experience our unique clinical rotations
Student feedback underscores the impact of clinical rotations and is regularly cited as the program highlight by graduates. Our 134-seat Oral Health Clinic creates a positive learning experience for providing quality oral health care that leaves students feeling confident in their skills. You’ll work with real patients, faculty from all dental professions, and will assist students in various programs, exposing you not only to your scope of practice but also the wider profession.
Clinical rotations start halfway through the program, happen multiple times a week, and are spaced out to align with your classroom learning. You won’t begin your practicum without already experiencing real-world rotations in:
- Assisting with undergraduate and graduate student procedures
- Assisting in preventive care with pediatric patients
- Sterilizing with industrial equipment
- Operating CBCT machines
- Providing clinical services administration
The University difference
Our students have the advantage of receiving a quality education that a top 100-ranked, world-class university has to offer, alongside the benefits of a close-knit faculty and student community. Our programs are among the best in Canada, and our faculty are recognized worldwide for their research and passion for teaching.
Here are some of the additional services that are included with your acceptance into the program:
Courses
The program is designed to build on the knowledge you get in each course and to introduce you to the profession. Your classes will be a mix of classroom lectures, labs, and clinic time.
Foundational knowledge and skills will be developed in:
- Behavioral sciences
- Biomedical sciences
- Oral health sciences
- Dental assisting theory and practice streams.
You'll integrate learning from all four streams and understand the relevance of foundational learning to dental assisting. You will also get to experience the Simulation Lab, Oral Health Clinic and have opportunities to apply your knowledge in both settings.
This course educates students on patient assessments, findings and related procedures. You will integrate learning from all four streams to apply your knowledge in various lab and pre-clinical settings to build on your foundational learning.
This course builds on the foundational knowledge by emphasizing patient care and clinical procedures.
This course focuses on the ability to assess, plan, implement and evaluate dental assisting procedures and patient care procedures. You will continue to apply foundational knowledge through assisting within the Oral Health clinic with fellow students and patients and perform their skills on peers in a clinical setting.
The emphasis of this course is for you to apply behavioral, biomedical, oral health sciences and dental assisting theory and practice into clinical practice. You'll apply your knowledge in office administration, assisting with patients in the Oral Health Clinic, treating patients and participating in an external practicum in a private dental practice.
Apply now
See admissions information for deadlines, admission requirements, admission selection, program costs and more. All applicants are in open competition for the available seats. Seats are not filled in the order applications are received.
Questions?
Contact dentistry admissions:
admissions.dentistry@ualberta.ca
780-492-1319
Quick links
Admission requirements
High school applicants
Post-secondary applicants