AAE members serving in the ADA House of Delegates:
Drs. Najia Usman, Alejandro Aguirre, Ammon Anderson, Emad Bassali, Monique Belin, Deborah Bishop, Michael Boykin, Mark Doherty, Bethany Douglas, Amro Elkhatieb, Richard Herman, Jeffrey Johnson, Kevin Keating, Michael Korch, Adrienne Korkosz, Afshin Mazdeyasnan, Kim Menhinick, Joseph Platt, James Phillips, Dustin Reynolds, Calvin Suffridge, Christopher Smith, James Stephens, Tadros Tadros, and Emily Tarr, 

The American Association of Endodontists (AAE) continued to demonstrate its strong presence and leadership within organized dentistry at the 2026 American Dental Association (ADA) House of Delegates meeting, held October 10–13. Through strategic advocacy, collaboration, and engagement with ADA leadership, the AAE worked to advance policies that protect specialty recognition, promote evidence-based dentistry, and strengthen the profession’s ability to advocate on behalf of dentists and their patients. 

AAE President Dr. W. Craig Noblett, President-Elect Dr. Elizabeth S. Perry, Treasurer Dr. Mark B. Desrosiers, and Secretary Dr. Kenneth Tittle represented the Association, reinforcing the importance of ensuring that the perspectives of endodontists are reflected in national dental policy discussions. 

Each year, the AAE Board of Directors reviews and establishes positions on ADA resolutions and reports with significant implications for endodontists. Working closely with Dr. Najia Usman, DDS, the AAE’s designated House of Delegates Liaison Chair, and AAE members serving as ADA delegates and alternate delegates, the Association identified key opportunities to advocate for policies supporting the specialty, protecting clinical autonomy, and promoting high-quality patient care. 

AAE Advocacy Priorities 

Resolution 501: Strengthening Ethical Standards for Specialty Advertising 

A significant priority for the AAE was Resolution 501, which revised and reorganized Section 5 of the ADA Principles of Ethics and Code of Professional Conduct, addressing professional announcements, advertising, credentials, and representations of dentists’ qualifications and services. 

The AAE supported the resolution, emphasizing the importance of accurate specialty advertising and ensuring that the promotion of dental services remains grounded in evidence-based care and established specialty recognition. As the Association continues to advocate against misleading specialty claims, maintaining clear distinctions between recognized dental specialties and other credentials remains essential to protecting patients and preserving public trust. 

The House of Delegates adopted Resolution 501, reinforcing the importance of ethical professional communications and transparency in dentistry. The AAE will continue advocating for policies that help patients make informed decisions about their care and understand the qualifications of their dental providers. 

Resolution 505: Preserving a Strong National Advocacy Voice 

The AAE also prioritized Resolution 505, which addressed the ADA’s authority to provide legislative and regulatory assistance at the state level. The proposal strengthened requirements for obtaining prior written consent from state dental societies before the ADA could support certain state-level advocacy initiatives. 

The AAE opposed the resolution, raising concerns that additional restrictions could limit the ADA’s ability to respond effectively when state-level positions conflict with established ADA policy or broader patient interests. The Association advocated for preserving the ADA’s ability to engage on critical issues, particularly those involving evidence-based care, specialty recognition, and patient protection. 

Although Resolution 505 was ultimately adopted, the AAE’s advocacy highlighted the importance of maintaining a coordinated national voice for dentistry and ensuring that the perspectives of recognized dental specialties remain part of future policy discussions. 

Additional Policy Achievements 

Beyond these priority resolutions, the AAE supported several successful measures addressing issues affecting endodontic practice, including greater transparency in dental insurance reimbursement, protections against inappropriate payer practices, and responsible use of artificial intelligence in dentistry. 

Notably, the House adopted resolutions supporting greater payer payment transparency, expanded reimbursement payment choices for dentists, and protections against arbitrary treatment completion deadlines imposed by dental benefit plans. The House also approved an updated policy on artificial intelligence emphasizing the importance of preserving dentists’ independent clinical judgment and appropriate oversight of AI-driven insurance decisions. 

Together, these measures reflect the AAE’s ongoing commitment to strengthening the practice environment for endodontists while advancing policies that prioritize patient care. 

AAE Luncheon Strengthens Relationships with ADA Leadership 

The AAE hosted its annual luncheon bringing together AAE members serving as ADA delegates and alternate delegates for an opportunity to connect, exchange perspectives, and discuss shared advocacy priorities. 

The gathering also welcomed distinguished ADA leadership, including ADA President Dr. Richard Rosato, President-Elect Dr. Thomas Paumier, Chief Executive Officer Dr. Nader Nadershahi, and Dr. Markarian, Chair of the ADA Specialty Task Force. 

The luncheon provided a valuable opportunity to strengthen relationships between the AAE and ADA leadership, reinforce the importance of collaboration across dental specialties, and highlight the unique perspectives endodontists bring to organized dentistry. These relationships are essential to ensuring that specialty concerns remain part of national policy discussions and that the AAE continues to serve as a trusted voice on issues affecting the profession. 

The AAE extends its sincere appreciation to the members who serve as ADA delegates and alternate delegates for their dedication, leadership, and continued advocacy on behalf of endodontics. Their engagement strengthens the specialty’s influence within organized dentistry and helps ensure that endodontists have a meaningful voice in shaping the future of dental policy. 

The Association looks forward to building on these relationships and continuing to advance policies that protect patients, strengthen the profession, and support the highest standards of endodontic care. 

By Dr. Shreyas Oza, Diplomate, American Board of Endodontics 

I have spent an embarrassing amount of time playing around with large language models over the past couple of years. Some of it has been genuinely useful — even this article has been “polished” by AI! Some of it has been entertaining. And some of it has involved watching an AI confidently give me an answer that was completely wrong. 

Somewhere along the way, I stopped thinking about AI as something I had to sit down at a computer to “use.” I started wondering whether it could actually be useful during a normal clinical day. Not someday. Not after some futuristic integration with the EHR. Could I use it tomorrow, with a patient sitting in my chair? 

The answer is a resounding yes. 

There are obviously much larger conversations happening around AI in health care — privacy, liability, accuracy, patient autonomy, clinical responsibility and how professional organizations should approach all of this. Those conversations are important, and they are still evolving. 

This article is not an attempt to answer them or establish what the profession’s position on AI should be.  

Instead, I want to answer a much smaller question: If an endodontist wants to understand what a large language model, or LLM, can actually do in clinical practice, where should they start? 

My suggestion is surprisingly simple. 

Start with your phone. 

Don’t Start With AI Diagnosing Patients 

When people hear “AI in dentistry,” I think our minds naturally jump to diagnostic applications: interpreting radiographs, analyzing CBCTs, detecting lesions and recommending treatment. 

That is interesting, but it isn’t where I would start. 

I think of an LLM more like a second workspace for my brain. I collect the history. I test the teeth. I look at the imaging. I make the diagnosis. Then I can give the LLM the information I collected and ask it to organize it, challenge it, explain it or document it. 

That difference is important. 

I don’t particularly want AI telling me what to do. I am much more interested in asking it: 

“What am I forgetting to think about?” 

Here’s What This Could Actually Look Like 

Imagine an emergency patient walks in. You do exactly what you already do: chief complaint, history, PA, cold, percussion, palpation, probing, bite test — whatever the situation requires. 

Nothing about the examination changes. 

When you’re finished, take out your phone, open your LLM of choice, hit the microphone and dictate: 

“42-year-old male. No. 30. Three days of spontaneous pain. Wakes him at night. Ibuprofen helps. No swelling. Cold on 29 normal, 30 severe lingering approximately 25 seconds, 31 normal. Percussion 30 positive. Palpation negative. Probing normal. No mobility. PA shows a deep restoration approaching the pulp and normal apical structures. Organize this consultation, suggest the pulpal and apical diagnostic categories, and tell me what I may have missed.” 

That takes maybe 20 seconds. 

No patient name. No date of birth. No chart number. 

For someone learning how to incorporate LLMs into clinical practice, I think intentionally using de-identified information is the easiest place to start. Once protected health information, or PHI, or continuous recording enters the equation, there are additional privacy, contractual, security, legal and practice-policy considerations. 

For now, keep it simple. 

Give It Instructions Once 

You also don’t want to explain the assignment every time you see a patient. I would create a dedicated conversation or appropriately configured workspace and give the LLM standing instructions along these lines: 

“When I give you an endodontic consultation, organize it into relevant history, diagnostic testing, proposed pulpal and apical diagnoses, missing or inconsistent findings, things I may have overlooked, reasonable treatment options, important points to discuss with the patient, and a concise draft clinical note. Never invent missing information. Clearly identify uncertainty. I will independently determine all diagnoses and treatment decisions.” 

Now you can simply dictate your findings. 

The goal isn’t to become a world-class prompt engineer. The goal is to spend as little time prompting as possible. 

My Favorite Question: “What Doesn’t Fit?” 

This is where I think things get interesting. 

Imagine a previously treated No. 19. Percussion is strongly positive. Palpation is negative. Probing is normal everywhere except for an isolated 9-mm distal-lingual defect. There is a J-shaped radiolucency associated with the distal root. 

You could ask: 

“What is the diagnosis?” 

Which, in my opinion, would be the wrong question. 

Instead, ask: 

“What doesn’t fit here, and what should I make sure I have considered before recommending treatment?” 

The model may point out that the isolated probing defect and radiographic pattern should raise concern for a vertical root fracture. 

Now, hopefully, no endodontist reading The Advocate just learned for the first time that an isolated deep probing defect could be associated with a root fracture. 

That’s not the point. 

The point is that we practice in the real world. You’re running behind. The patient is uncomfortable. Your assistant needs you in another room. The referring dentist wants to know whether the tooth is savable. Your next patient arrived 15 minutes early, which somehow makes you feel even later. 

In that environment, having something ask, “Did you think about this?” can be useful. 

I have started thinking of an LLM less as an oracle and more as a checklist that talks back. 

Use It When Something Weird Happens 

The same concept can be useful during treatment. 

Let’s say you are treating No. 30 and the distal canal continues to drain despite instrumentation and irrigation. 

I would not ask: 

“Should I obturate?” 

Instead, my query would be: 

“I’m getting persistent clear drainage from the distal canal despite instrumentation and irrigation. Give me the most important things I should consider before deciding whether to obturate today.” 

That’s a very different relationship with the technology. 

Or maybe the preoperative CBCT suggested possible middle mesial anatomy. You have found MB and ML and see a developmental groove between them. An appropriate ask would be: 

“Give me a quick checklist of what I should evaluate before concluding whether a separate middle mesial canal is present.” 

Maybe it tells you something useful. 

Maybe it tells you five things you already know. 

Either outcome takes about 15 seconds. And you still make the decision. 

Then Let It Do Something We Actually Hate Doing 

At the end of the appointment, AI becomes considerably less philosophical and considerably more useful: documentation. 

Before leaving the operatory, hit the microphone: 

“Treatment completed. Four canals. MB, ML, DB and D. Working lengths 20, 21, 19 and 19.5 millimeters. Final sizes 30/.04 mesials, 40/.04 distals. Sodium hypochlorite and EDTA irrigation. Obturation with gutta-percha and sealer. Patient tolerated treatment well. Draft my treatment note and postoperative instructions.” 

One practical trick makes this even easier: Keep the same LLM account open on both your phone and your operatory desktop. 

I can dictate the encounter on my phone, and the response is waiting for me on the computer almost immediately. From there, after reviewing it for accuracy, I can copy the relevant text into the patient’s record. 

For SOAP notes, consultation reports and treatment summaries, this can turn what used to be several minutes of typing into a remarkably quick workflow. Now you have a draft while everything is still fresh in your head. 

Read it. Correct it. Add anything important. Then put the appropriate information into the record. 

I cannot emphasize the “read it” part enough. LLMs have an impressive ability to occasionally say something completely incorrect in language that makes you briefly question whether you are the one who is wrong. 

Never confuse eloquence with accuracy. 

AI Is Also Pretty Good at Speaking Patient 

Another place I think LLMs can be genuinely helpful is patient communication. 

We spend our days explaining irreversible pulpitis, necrosis, cracks, retreatment, resorption, apical disease and postoperative pain. Eventually, you forget that most people don’t use the phrase “symptomatic apical periodontitis” before lunch. 

Try: 

“Explain irreversible pulpitis to a nervous patient in 30 seconds without using dental terminology.” 

Or: 

“Give me a simple analogy for why a root canal sometimes needs retreatment even though the patient already had one.” 

Or: 

“Explain why this tooth may remain sore for several days without making it sound like the treatment failed.” 

You don’t necessarily have to read the response to the patient. Sometimes it simply gives you a better way of saying something you’ve explained a thousand times. 

And Then We Have to Talk About Privacy 

This is where “using AI” becomes too broad a phrase. 

There is a big difference among these three scenarios. 

Level 1: De-identified assistant 

You intentionally tell the LLM: 

“45-year-old female, No. 19, percussion positive …” 

No patient identifiers. No ambient listening. 

That’s where I would start. 

Level 2: PHI-enabled assistant 

Now the system receives identifiable patient information or interacts with the patient’s record. 

At that point, you need to understand the particular product you’re using, its data handling, security, contractual arrangements, applicable privacy requirements and your own institutional policies. 

A familiar logo on the screen does not automatically make every use of that product appropriate for PHI. 

Level 3: Ambient AI 

Now the AI listens to the actual patient encounter, potentially creates the note, accesses records or imaging, or becomes integrated into the clinical workflow. 

This is exciting technology, but it is also a very different privacy and consent conversation. 

Patient disclosure, consent, recording laws, data retention, transparency, autonomy and professional responsibility all become much more relevant. 

So when someone asks, “Do I need an AI consent form?” I don’t think there is a useful one-word answer. 

The better question is: What exactly is the AI doing? 

An LLM rewriting a de-identified explanation of postoperative discomfort is not the same thing as a system recording an entire patient encounter and placing information into the health record. 

We shouldn’t treat them as though they are. 

Keep the Human in Command 

In its position paper on responsible AI integration, the American Association of Orthodontists used a phrase I really like: “Human-in-Command.” 

It describes the relationship I want with these tools. 

AI can organize my findings. It can challenge my thinking. It can draft my note. It can remind me of something. And it can occasionally make me look smarter than I am when I need a good analogy. 

But I need to be capable of evaluating everything it produces. 

That matters because there is a danger more subtle than simply getting a wrong answer: accepting an answer because a computer delivered it confidently. 

If AI gives you a citation, verify it. 

If it writes your note, read it. 

If it suggests something clinically unexpected, investigate it. 

And if the answer doesn’t make sense, don’t torture your clinical findings until the computer becomes right. 

If You’ve Never Done This, Try One Thing Tomorrow 

Don’t buy anything. 

Don’t redesign your workflow. 

Don’t integrate AI into your practice-management software. 

Take your phone. 

After your next consultation, de-identify the case and spend 20 seconds dictating your findings. 

Then ask: 

“What doesn’t fit? What information am I missing?” 

Read the answer. 

At the end of the procedure, dictate what you did and ask it to draft your note. 

Then read that too. 

Try it for a few cases. 

You will figure out very quickly where the technology saves you time, where it helps you think and where it is more trouble than it is worth. 

And that may be the best way to learn AI — not through another webinar explaining what a large language model is, but by actually using one. 

Eventually, once you have streamlined the process for yourself, you may find new, creative ways to use the tool in your practice. You may also identify appropriate tasks that can be delegated to dental assistants, making the process even more efficient. 

You, the endodontist, still do the endodontics. 

The Endodontist Still Does the Endodontics 

Our specialty has never exactly been afraid of technology. 

We work through microscopes. We interpret CBCTs. We use electronic apex locators, ultrasonics and increasingly sophisticated irrigation technologies. 

We can also spend an astonishing amount of time debating .04 versus .06 taper. 

LLMs are simply another kind of tool. 

They aren’t going to negotiate MB2 for you tomorrow morning. But they might organize the information surrounding the case. They might challenge an assumption. They might help explain something to a patient. They might turn 20 seconds of talking into the first draft of a clinical note. 

And maybe the best question isn’t, “Can AI do this for me?” 

Maybe it’s: 

“Can AI help make sure I haven’t forgotten something while I do it?” 

That is the role for AI in endodontics that interests me most right now. 

And unlike most new technology in our specialty, you can find out whether it’s useful without asking your practice owner for another $80,000. 

The American Association of Endodontists (AAE) recently joined the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (AAOMS) and other medical and dental organizations in urging Congress to advance the Resident Education Deferred Interest (REDI) Act (S. 942/H.R. 2028). Led by AAOMS, the coalition is calling on congressional leaders to move the bipartisan, bicameral legislation forward as a targeted solution to the growing student debt challenges facing medical and dental residents. 

For endodontic residents, the issue is particularly important. Dentists can graduate with significant educational debt and then spend additional years completing the advanced clinical training required to become specialists. During residency, they typically earn modest salaries while managing their existing student loan obligations. Although current deferment and forbearance options may allow residents to temporarily pause payments, interest can continue to accrue, increasing their overall debt before they enter practice. 

The REDI Act would address this challenge by allowing eligible borrowers enrolled in accredited medical and dental internship or residency programs to defer interest accrual on their federal student loans during their required postgraduate training. By preventing additional interest from accumulating during residency, the legislation would help reduce the financial burden on future physicians and dentists and help ensure that educational debt does not discourage individuals from pursuing critical careers in patient care. 

The need for action has become even more pressing following recent changes to federal student loan policy. Beginning July 1, 2026, new federal borrowing caps for graduate and professional students and the elimination of the Graduate PLUS loan program reduced financing options available to future medical and dental students. While these changes are intended to address rising tuition costs, the coalition cautioned that they may increase the immediate financial challenges facing students pursuing careers in medicine and dentistry. Against this changing financial landscape, preventing interest from accruing during required residency training represents a practical way to support the next generation of healthcare professionals. 

AAE has also been leading the charge among its own members and residents to build grassroots support for the REDI Act. At AAE26, members were encouraged to take action and directly contact their lawmakers in support of the legislation, generating more than 60 messages to Congress. AAE continued that momentum at APICES 2026 in St. Louis, where Advocacy staff connected with endodontic residents, educated them about the REDI Act and provided opportunities for them to make their voices heard on Capitol Hill. Together, these efforts demonstrate the important role endodontists and residents can play in complementing national coalition advocacy with direct constituent engagement. 

The impact of the REDI Act extends beyond individual borrowers. Reducing financial pressures during residency can help support a more sustainable healthcare workforce and encourage physicians and dentists to pursue specialties and serve communities where provider shortages persist. Improving the financial environment for postgraduate training can ultimately strengthen access to timely patient care while helping reduce preventable complications and unnecessary healthcare costs. 

By joining the AAOMS-led coalition effort and continuing to mobilize endodontists and residents through its own grassroots advocacy, AAE is working on multiple fronts to advance the REDI Act. The Association remains committed to supporting policies that strengthen the dental workforce, reduce unnecessary financial barriers to advanced education and ensure that the next generation of endodontists can focus on their training, their profession and the patients they will serve.