Overview:
Artificial intelligence is transforming dental diagnosis and practice — but are we asking the right questions about what it actually offers? This webinar invites dental educators, clinicians, and students to critically examine the growing enthusiasm for AI in dentistry through a cultural and educational lens.
Drawing on a forthcoming paper by von Bergmann and Shuler from UBC Dentistry, this session revisits the longstanding culture of certainty in dental training (von Bergmann & Shuler, 2019) — the implicit professional message that good clinicians always have the right answer, quickly — and asks whether AI is reinforcing that culture rather than challenging it. When a model reports "93% confidence," is that a clinical truth or a probability that deserves scrutiny? And how do our habits as educators shape whether learners treat AI as an oracle or a 'thinking partner' but forgo their own thinking?
Whether you're integrating AI into your curriculum, your clinic, or your own practice, this webinar offers a timely provocation: the goal isn't certainty. It's better judgment.
Learning Objectives:
- Discuss why AI's apparent precision can deepen, rather than resolve, premature clinical closure.
- Describe what recent scoping reviews reveal about reproducibility, bias, and ethical transparency gaps in dental AI research.
- Explore how dental education can reframe AI as a collaborator in navigating uncertainty — not eliminating it.
- Discuss practical pedagogical approaches that foster epistemic humility and reflective reasoning alongside AI tools.
Speaker:
Dr. HsingChi von Bergmann
Faculty of Dentistry, University of British Columbia
Moderator:
Dr. Alexandra Pierre-Bez, Midwestern University College of Dental Medicine - Arizona