The recent rise of powerful large language model (LLM)-based AI tools, exemplified by ChatGPT and Bard, poses a great challenge to contemporary dental education while simultaneously offering a unique resource and approach that potentially complements today's teaching and learning, where existing widely available learning resources have often fallen short. Although both the clinical and educational aspects of dentistry will be shaped profoundly by the LLM tools, the didactic curricula, which primarily rely on lecture-based courses where instructors impart knowledge through presentations and discussions, need to be upgraded urgently. In this paper, we used dental course materials, syllabi, and textbooks adopted currently in the School of Dentistry (SOD) at Meharry Medical College to assess the potential utility and effectiveness of ChatGPT in dental education. We collected the responses of the chatbot to questions as well as students' interactions with it for assessment. Our results showed that ChatGPT can assist in dental essay writing and generate relevant content for dental students, in addition to other benefits. The limitations of ChatGPT were also discussed in the paper.
Keywords: ChatGPT; Dental Education; Dentistry; Large language model; Student Learning.