AI for dentists, from a dentistWhy now, and what AI can't do
Patients and colleagues are already using AI. Here is what it does well, and where it stops.
If part of you feels you should already know all this, you're not alone. Most dentists I speak to feel the same.
You're not behind. You're early enough to do this calmly, one small step at a time.
Before anything else: this ebook is written by a dentist and a practice owner, not a lawyer. It is not legal advice or data protection advice. The GDC standards, the ICO's data protection guidance and the CQC's rules apply to you as they do to us, and each practice is responsible for its own data. Chapter 5 says what never goes into an AI tool. Read it before you paste anything in.
Watch the film first
At the top of the ebook page on our website there is a 25 minute film called "Watch what's possible". It shows what a small London practice runs on AI today, in my own words.
Watch it before you read on, or in two sittings. It will make the rest of this ebook easier to picture.
Why now
Three things have changed in the last year or two.
- Patients arrive with ChatGPT advice. You have probably met one already: the patient who has read up on veneers the night before, or who arrives with a list of questions about a crown.
- Some patients ask AI which dentist to see. Before, that question only went to Google.
- Your colleagues are trying it. Quietly, at the kitchen table, often without mentioning it at work.
The tools have also become simple. Nothing to install. You type in plain English, the way you would brief a colleague, and it writes back.
What AI is good at
Think of four verbs. If a job is mostly one of these, AI can usually help.
- Drafting. A reply to a Google review. A patient letter from an anonymised note. A job advert. The first version of a practice policy.
- Summarising. A long guidance document. A supplier contract. The notes from a team meeting, with no patient names in them.
- Explaining. A treatment in plain English for a nervous patient. A new rule in simpler words, which you then check against the source.
- Planning. The week's morning huddle. A month of posts. A first rota.
The easiest way to picture it is a very quick, very well read new team member on their first day. They know a great deal about dentistry in general. They know nothing about you, your patients or how your practice does things. Chapter 3 shows you how to brief them.
What it must never do
There are three lines I never cross, in our practice or anywhere else.
- It never diagnoses. It can explain a condition in general terms. It cannot examine your patient, and it does not know what you saw in the chair. Never describe a real patient's symptoms and ask it what is wrong.
- It never decides. Treatment, hiring, the outcome of a complaint. AI can lay out the options clearly. A person makes the decision.
- It never sees patient records in a consumer chat. No names, dates of birth, addresses, NHS numbers or photos of patients go into Claude or ChatGPT on a personal plan. Chapter 5 covers exactly what may go in and what never does.
One more thing to know from day one. AI can be confidently wrong. It can invent a fact, a reference or a price and say it in a calm, convincing voice.
So the rule that runs through this whole ebook is simple. You are the clinician and the editor. The AI drafts, and a person checks every line before it goes anywhere.
The quiet worries
These are the things dentists tell me once the room is quiet. If one of them is yours, that's normal.
"I'm too tired to learn another thing." I understand. This ebook asks for about ten minutes a day. Chapter 2 is, quite literally, your first ten minutes.
"I already carry all of it." You don't have to carry all of it. The point is to hand over the drafting, not the deciding. You stay in control of everything that matters.
"Everyone else is ahead of me." Most practices are where you are: curious, a little wary, not sure where to start. Starting now, carefully, is a good place to be.
"What about the GDC?" A fair question, and the right instinct. Your standards don't change because the tool did. Patient confidentiality, honest advertising and responsibility for what goes out under your name all still apply. Chapters 5 and 7 take you through the rules in plain words.
Tip: You don't need to understand how AI works to use it well. You need to know what to give it, what to keep from it, and how to check what comes back. That is what the next nine chapters are for.
Do this today
Watch the film at the top of the ebook page (thefullarch.drskots.com/ebook, if you are reading the PDF).
Then take a sheet of paper and write down three jobs from last week that were mostly writing, reading or explaining. A letter you put off. A policy you meant to update. A message you rewrote three times.
Circle the one that annoyed you most. Keep the paper. By chapter 3 you will know how to hand that job a first draft.