Therapeutic Guidelines for the ADC Exam — What to Study & How
The Therapeutic Guidelines is the single most important resource for the ADC Written Exam. It's also the one most overseas-trained dentists discover too late. Here's how to study it effectively.
Why TG matters more than any textbook
The ADC Written Exam tests whether you can make clinical decisions like an Australian dentist. The Therapeutic Guidelines (TG) is the reference that Australian dentists actually use in practice — it's the standard for prescribing, managing infections, handling pain, and making clinical decisions in the Australian healthcare context.
When the ADC writes a question about antibiotic prescribing for a dental infection, the correct answer comes from TG. When they ask about pain management for a pregnant patient, the answer comes from TG. When a question involves drug interactions or contraindications, TG is the source. It's not one of several references — it's the reference.
Most overseas-trained dentists prepare from general dentistry textbooks. These give you the foundational knowledge, but they don't give you the Australian-specific clinical decisions that the exam tests. You can know everything about amoxicillin pharmacology and still get the question wrong because TG recommends a different first-line choice for that specific clinical scenario in Australia.
What TG covers that matters for the ADC
The Therapeutic Guidelines is a comprehensive resource, but for ADC preparation, certain sections carry disproportionate weight. Antibiotic prescribing is heavily tested — first-line choices for dental infections, when to prescribe and when not to, dosing for adults and children, and what to do when the patient has allergies (especially penicillin allergy).
Analgesic prescribing comes up frequently. The hierarchy of pain management, when to use paracetamol versus ibuprofen versus combination therapy, and the specific contraindications in pregnancy, renal impairment, and elderly patients. TG is very precise about these decision trees, and the ADC tests that precision.
Antibiotic prophylaxis is another high-yield area. Which cardiac conditions require prophylaxis before dental procedures, which don't, and what the recommended regimens are. This is an area where international guidelines differ significantly — what you learned about prophylaxis in your home country may not match Australian practice.
Management of dental emergencies, drug interactions (particularly with anticoagulants, antihypertensives, and diabetes medications), and prescribing in special populations (pregnancy, breastfeeding, paediatrics, elderly, renal/hepatic impairment) round out the high-yield TG content.
How to actually study TG
Don't read TG like a textbook — read it like a decision tree. For each clinical scenario, TG presents a structured approach: assess the patient, identify the condition, choose the treatment, consider contraindications, and manage follow-up. Your job is to internalise the decision logic, not memorise the text.
Start by reading through the dental-relevant sections once, cover to cover. On this first pass, focus on understanding the reasoning behind each recommendation. Why is amoxicillin first-line for this but not that? Why is the dose different for children? Why is this drug avoided in the third trimester?
On your second pass, turn it into active learning. For each clinical scenario in TG, write the question before you read the answer: "What would I prescribe here?" Then check against TG. The gaps between your instinct and TG's recommendation are exactly what the ADC is testing.
Finally, practise with clinical vignette questions that specifically test TG content. Isolated MCQs about drug names and doses are useful for recall, but the ADC presents TG knowledge inside patient scenarios. You need to practise retrieving TG knowledge under the pressure of a clinical case, not in isolation.
Every Reviz question cites the exact TG section.
No made-up content. No conflicting sources. The books say it, Remy teaches it. Try 10 free clinical vignette questions sourced from prescribed textbooks.
Try Free Questions →Common TG mistakes overseas dentists make
Using home-country guidelines. The most common mistake. Your instinct says metronidazole for dental infection because that's what your faculty taught. TG says amoxicillin first-line. The ADC follows TG. Your instinct costs you marks.
Memorising drug names without context. TG doesn't just list drugs — it provides clinical decision pathways. The ADC tests the pathway, not just the drug name. Knowing that "phenoxymethylpenicillin" is recommended means nothing if you don't know for which condition, at what dose, for how long, and what the alternative is for penicillin-allergic patients.
Skipping the contraindications. TG is explicit about when NOT to prescribe. These contraindication scenarios are heavily tested in the ADC because they test your ability to identify risk — which is the core skill of safe clinical practice.
Not practising with vignettes. You can read TG perfectly and still get ADC questions wrong because the exam wraps TG content inside clinical scenarios. The patient has diabetes, is on warfarin, has a penicillin allergy, and presents with a dental abscess. You need to navigate all of those factors simultaneously — that's the skill TG study needs to build.