From Repetition to Reform: Confronting Academic Redundancy in Dental Education

Introduction: Why This Conversation Matters NowModern dental education was built on a vision of continual improvement.Nearly over a century ago the great visionary William J. Gies said, What we want is a better class of better dentists, because the world is, I believe, suffering from a lack of good dental service more than from any bodily ailment of which we have any knowledge .This insightful vision has helped shape the foundations of modern dental education; the profession faces a different but related challenge: How to preserve educational rigor and institutional memory while ensuring that accumulated curricular and organizational structures remain responsive to contemporary learners and professional needs.Calls for transformation in dental education are not new.The American Dental Education Association (ADEA) Commission on Change and Innovation in Dental Education identified the need to reconsider traditional educational approaches and promote deliberate change in response to evolving societal, professional, and educational demands [ 1,2 ].The Commission's work also highlighted concerns about curricular complexity and educational environments that may be expensive and dissatisfying for learners [ 2 ].Yet curricular renewal remains challenging.New knowledge, technologies, expectations, and educational priorities are often added to existing structures, while fewer mechanisms exist for systematically determining what should be integrated, reduced, or retired.