Personal information

Biography

Dr Sue Gardner has held a tenured position as a Lecturer at the Adelaide Dental School, the University of Adelaide since 2005 and teaches in a range of courses in the Dentistry and Oral Health programs. She graduated as a Dental Therapist in 1971, in South Australia and worked part-time as a dental therapist for the South Australian Dental Service for a very long period. During this time she held several casual employment contracts working as a clinical tutor for undergraduate, DTs, OHTs and Dental students at Somerton Park.She completed the Bachelor of Adult and Vocational Education, in 2002, University of South Australia, the Bachelor of Science in Dentistry (Honours) in 2007, through the University of Adelaide. In 2015 Sue was awarded her PhD with a Dean’s commendation for ‘Doctoral Thesis Excellence’ at the University of Adelaide. Her thesis is titled ‘Exploration of dentists’ characteristics associated with caring for disadvantaged patients; using a mixed-methods approach’. Sue holds a tenured Lecturer position at the Adelaide Dental School, University of Adelaide, and is Academic Lead (First Year Experience) for the Faculty of Health Sciences, School Program Board. She served as Chair and Co-Chair of the Schools Admissions committee for many years and has published in areas of career motivation of both dental and oral health students and also on the impact of changes to selection criteria has had on students performance. Sue teaches in both Dentistry and Oral Health programs in a variety of courses; namely Dental Anatomy, Behavioural Sciences, Nutrition, Evidenced-Based Dentistry, Radiography, Clinical Practice, Dental Simulation, Professional Studies, Social and Community Health, Research electives across different year levels. Other interests include predicting student performance, Indigenous oral health, underserved populations, pre-clinical dentistry, scope of practice and health inequalities.