TL;DR
Researchers at Queen Mary University of London have told the General Dental Council (GDC) that introducing AI into dental education should be handled as a patient safety issue, not only as a chance to innovate. Their review, announced by the university on 28 October, will inform how the dental regulator approaches AI in its education standards.
What the review found
Professor Manu Raj Mathur’s team at the university’s dental institute examined 75 studies. They also interviewed regulators, education specialists and recently qualified dentists. They found AI is already used or being piloted across training, from admissions, teaching and clinical simulation to assessment and continuing development.
The benefits they identify include more personalised learning, faster feedback and safe practice of clinical procedures in simulation. On the risk side sit inaccurate AI-generated material, students leaning too heavily on the tools, cheating, and the handling of patient data.
Their recommendations cover clearer governance of AI in teaching and assessment, better digital skills for students and staff, stronger data protection and continued checks on what AI does to clinical competence and to patients. Mathur said tomorrow’s dentists must be able to think critically, exercise judgement and act ethically when they use these tools.
The work was produced independently for the GDC. It will inform how the regulator treats AI in two of its frameworks: the Safe Practitioner framework and its education standards.
Why it matters
In our view, the patient safety framing is the useful contribution. It moves the test away from whether a tool helps students and towards whether reliance on it during training could later harm a patient, a kind of standard regulators already enforce. Other professional regulators face a version of the same question about certifying competence when trainees learn alongside AI; see, for example, our report on a CPS prosecutor’s citation to the High Court.
Looking Forward
Dental schools should watch the two GDC frameworks the review names, since that is where any new expectations on AI in teaching and assessment would land.