Originally Posted by martian

Hi everybody, I am a dentist from India and am training to be a forensic dentist in Australia. Forensic Dentistry is taught here and you can do a Graduate Diploma and go on to do a masters in this feild.

The main thing with forensic dentistry or rather any branch of forensics is a knowledge of the law esp. the criminal law as ultimately most of the cases that you work with are going to end up in court and you will have to be there to defend your work and make sure that you have done it according to the law.

About 10-15 years back, here in australia any dentist with an interest in forensics and a little bit of knowledge could work as a forensic dentist but times have changed and now you have to have completed atleast a grad dip in forensic dentistry to work as a forensic dentist. The course involves a unit on dental anatomy, a unit on law, another on dental aspects of forensics (recording bite marks, making impressions from bodies, DNA extraction from teeth, child abuse cases, etc, etc.) an a unit on forensic pathology (which also involves attending autopsies and sometimes assisting the pathologist).

Hope this gives you a basic idea and if there's anything specific do not hesitate to ask.

Cheers...