The McGill Dental School was established in June 1904 as a department in the Faculty of Medicine and continued as such until 1920 when it became known as the Faculty of Dentistry.

The Faculty of Dentistry has always been closely associated with the Montreal General Hospital, where the clinical teaching in the faculty is mainly carried out along with rotations to other teaching hospitals. The pre-clinical teaching laboratory is housed in the Strathcona Anatomy & Dentistry Building on campus. The basic science subjects are taught in conjunction with the Faculty of Medicine during the first 18 months of the program.

The Faculty of Dentistry has been training leaders in the dental professions in Canada, the United States, and other countries for more than 80 years. The Multidisciplinary Residency program, which is the largest in the country with a present enrolment of 18, is based in the dental departments of five McGill teaching centres close to the downtown core: the Montreal General Hospital, the Royal Victoria Hospital, the Montreal Children’s Hospital, and the Jewish General Hospital.

The goal of the program is to provide the recent dental graduate with a broad multidisciplinary approach to the clinical practice of dentistry. With this in mind, the residents are under the constant supervision and guidance of members of the attending staff. The teaching staff of the five teaching centres comprises general practitioners and specialists. The specialties represented are Endodontics, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Oral Medicine, Orthodontics, Periodontics, Prosthodontics, and Pediatric Dentistry. Other specialists (e.g. Oral Pathology, Radiology) are available for consultations. All clinical teachers hold appointments in the Faculty of Dentistry, McGill University.