In this edition of DocScopy by MedBound Times, we speak with Dr. Ekta Pandya, BDS, DDS, a New York-based general dentist, Clinical Associate Faculty at NYU Continuing Dental Education’s Full Mouth Rehabilitation Programme, and founder of Raident AI. Recognized by Incisal Edge as one of its 40 Under 40 honorees and inducted as a Fellow of the Pierre Fauchard Academy and the International College of Dentist, Dr. Pandya brings experience in full-mouth rehabilitation, implant dentistry, comprehensive treatment planning, and preventive care.
In this conversation, she reflects on her journey from dental education in India to clinical practice and teaching in the United States, discusses the role of mentorship in professional growth, and explores how artificial intelligence could support dental diagnosis and treatment planning. She also shares the thinking behind Raident AI, her vision for more consistent, patient-focused dental care, and the importance of balancing technological innovation with clinical judgement.
Arushi Roy Chowdhury, who holds a postgraduate qualification in Journalism is a journalist at MedBound Times and explores Dr. Pandya’s educational and professional journey.
Arushi: How did your dental education and early experiences in India shape your approach to dentistry? What motivated you to pursue further training and clinical practice in the United States?
Dr. Ekta Pandya: My dental education in India gave me a strong foundation on didactics. In the US, they still teach you didactics, but the approach is more flexible and fluid, and you apply that knowledge in practice. Their approach focuses more on how to apply knowledge to clinical practice and day-to-day work. In my personal opinion, my education in India helped me develop stronger book-based and foundational knowledge.
Arushi: All right. If you had to give advice or outline the key steps involved in pursuing a DDS degree or qualifying through other available pathways in the US, what would you tell current Indian students who have graduated with a BDS degree in India?
Dr. Pandya: The pathway depends on the applicant’s background and the state where they want to practice. I followed the advanced standing DDS route. These programmes allow internationally trained dentists to earn DDS or DMD degrees.
Some internationally trained dentists explore specialty or postgraduate programmes. However, admission to a programme does not qualify for a dental license.
The third approach involves GPR programs (General Practice Residency), AEGD programs (Advanced Education in General Dentistry), and different fellowships. Some of these are restricted because not every state recognises them. It depends on the state, where you can practise, and where you cannot practise.
Faculty appointments and any associated limited practice permissions have separate eligibility requirements. Applicants should check the relevant state dental board’s current rules directly.
There are various pathways, depending on what you want to do, how you want to practise, and where you want to live.
Arushi: Is there any particular examination that you have to clear?
Dr. Pandya: Applicants need to check the current examination and admission requirements of their chosen programmes and state dental board. These can include national dental board examinations, English-language testing, and clinical or residency requirements, depending on the pathway.
Arushi: Got it. Do you think moving from India to the US presented any major challenges? You did your training in India, but you're practising in the US. What challenges did you face the most?
Dr. Pandya: I think the biggest challenge during the initial years was going back through dental school and living by yourself. I was in New York, which is an expensive city, so it was financially difficult. I won't lie.
I was lucky that I was able to get a student loan from the bank. In the US, they also give you loans for living expenses, which allows you to get going.
Looking back now, it doesn't feel like it was that bad. Now it feels like it was all worth it. At that moment, it felt like, "Oh, this is hard." But looking back, it feels like it was fine.
Dr. Lizanne Rebello, who holds an MDS in Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology, Goa Dental College And Hospital, Goa, is a Medical Content Writer at MedBound Hub and explores the clinical aspects of dentistry.
Dr. Lizanne: Dr. Ekta, as an oral pathologist, I have learnt that it is important to look beyond the teeth. How did your experience with full-mouth rehabilitation transform your approach to diagnosis and comprehensive patient care?
Dr. Ekta Pandya: Going through the FMR training (Full Mouth Rehabilitation or Reconstruction) was a pivotal moment in my career.
I started as a dentist in India, where the concept of dentistry is very different. We treat patients department by department. For example, you treat them in endodontics, perform all the root canals, and then send them to periodontics. You move on from there.
That's how I was trained in dental school in India. I then practised in India for a year, although my practice was very limited. Private practice in India was mainly problem-focused, meaning that if a patient had an issue, you treated it.
When I went to dental school here, that's when I learned the concept of comprehensive care. You still do that, but to a limited extent because you don't have training in periodontics and prosthodontics.
I then pursued NYU’s Full Mouth Rehabilitation Programme. It changed my approach to seeing the patient as a whole, considering their occlusal plane and periodontal health, and planning treatment together.
There's a very good analogy we use in the programme: If you have four flat tyres, which one would you replace?
If you have so many things going on in the mouth, you just can't pick one and treat it in isolation. When you're treating one tooth at a time, you're not keeping everything else in mind. You can't just replace one flat tyre and expect your car to keep going. Other things are going to start failing.
That's the diagnostic approach I learned. There are times when you have to treat everything together and see the person and their mouth as a whole.
Dr. Lizanne: Exactly. In clinical practice, two dentists can examine the same patient and arrive at very different treatment plans. What do you think drives these differences, and how can we make treatment planning more consistent without compromising individualised patient care?
Dr. Pandya: I think this is a very good question. It has affected me for the majority of my career, and I'm still trying to find an answer to it.
There are different ways of doing things. Suppose you and I sat down with the same patient. Even today, the differences sometimes come from our training, such as what you've learned versus what I've learned over the years. There are also differences in skill sets: what works in my hands and what works in yours.
Our opinions can also differ based on the patients we've seen. The types of patients we encounter can shape our opinions, and these can become personal biases.
These factors influence our decisions. A structured assessment can help us make reasoning behind a recommendation more explicit, while still accounting for the individual patient’s needs and preferences.
Even if you discuss a case with a patient and feel that a particular option might be ideal, I think that, as clinicians, we are obliged to offer patients alternative treatment options because they need to know what might be best for them.
I was reading another dentist's blog yesterday. Her father went to a dentist, and he had a very severe malocclusion and other issues. The dentist he visited assumed that he might not want orthodontic treatment at his age, so they didn't offer him orthodontic correction.
The dentist who wrote the blog was upset. She asked how they could assume that her father wouldn't be able to undergo orthodontic treatment. She felt it was the best option for him and that they should have discussed it with him.
That's something I want to talk about because there are many times when we refuse to treat certain conditions or offer certain options, assuming, "Oh, it's better to just extract all these teeth and provide a complete denture." We don't discuss the alternatives.
Dr. Lizanne: Dr. Ekta, there's currently a focus in dentistry on preserving natural tooth structure. How can dentists balance definitive treatment with preserving natural tooth structure and prioritising prevention? This may apply to cases as simple as caries management.
Dr. Pandya: When it comes to preserving teeth, I think we need to keep in mind what we're doing. If you're doing a simple one-tooth filling, of course, you need to be transparent with the patient about the prognosis of the tooth.
However, there are nonrestorative caries management treatments, such as peptides and silver diamine fluoride.
You also have to keep the patient's age and risk factors in mind. If a patient has low salivary content or another health condition that predisposes them to cavities, you can develop a caries management plan for them.
When a patient has multiple compromised teeth and is considering a full-mouth rehabilitation, we evaluate each tooth’s prognosis, patient’s risk factors, and how retaining or replacing that tooth would affect the overall plan.
This discussion comes up as we're just starting the orientation for our full-mouth rehabilitation class. We see how, as dentists, we feel bad when we need to extract a tooth. Even if we think, "Okay, this isn't bad right now," we also have to ask whether the tooth is going to last another five or ten years.
Sometimes, when looking at the bigger picture, we may have to decide whether saving a tooth fits into a long-term foundation plan.
However, when we're doing quadrant dentistry or treating individual teeth, we can sometimes be heroic and try to save teeth that may not last another five years.
Dr. Lizanne: Yes, Dr. Ekta. As you mentioned earlier, we need to look at the patient as a whole, not just one tooth.
Dr. Pandya: Yes. In teaching, we discuss how a proposed treatment for one tooth can affect the prognosis of the entire rehabilitation.
For example, in a patient at high risk for caries, we need to consider whether crown lengthening and extensive restorative treatment would provide a maintainable result. That decision requires a careful assessment of the patient’s history, remaining tooth structure, and ability to maintain oral health.
Dr. Lizanne: Dr. Ekta, how has teaching at NYU influenced your own clinical thinking, and what changes would you like to see in Indian dental education?
Dr. Pandya: From what I have seen among my peers, there are increasing opportunities in India to newer technologies and clinical techniques through continuing education.
I want to commend the dentists and dental organisations creating these opportunities and making continuing education more accessible.
I think we're doing really well, and I'm proud of that.
Regarding how teaching has influenced my own practice, I recommend that everybody teach. Teaching opens your eyes to so many things, and it also humbles you.
When somebody comes up to you and asks a question, and you don't know the answer, it makes you realise that you don't know everything. One day, you wake up thinking, "I know everything. I'm really good at my job."
When colleagues and participants ask questions and share their experience, I learn from them as well. Teaching encourages me to examine my reasoning and keep learning.
So, yes, it keeps you up to date and your knowledge current.
Mariyam F., who holds a BSc in Life Sciences and is pursuing a postgraduate diploma in Clinical Research, is a Healthcare and Medical Writer at MedBound Times and explores Dr. Pandya’s entrepreneurial work in dental AI.
Mariam: We all know that, besides being a dentist and a teacher, you're also an innovator. My questions will focus on your journey as a founder.
To begin with, could you tell us what inspired you to start Raident AI? Was there a particular challenge you noticed in your everyday dental practice, especially around diagnosis or treatment planning, that made you feel existing tools weren't enough?
Dr. Ekta Pandya: It started about a year ago. After I completed my full-mouth rehabilitation training, my treatment planning became very structured. I started gathering a lot of information about my patients and planning treatment in stages.
Applying that level of detail to everyday practice was time consuming. I wanted to make a structured approach more practical in my everyday care.
I wanted to apply this approach more broadly. I had limited it to patients undergoing full-mouth rehabilitation rather than using it for my day-to-day patients. It would make things more structured and improve communication with specialists and patients.
Often, patients come in with one issue they want to treat but don't understand the other issues we may find during a thorough examination. In the United States, many people are treated in an insurance-based system. This means their insurance coverage changes every year, which can cause issues when we're explaining treatment plans.
As a result, patients may complete treatment for their immediate concern but not realise that there are other issues that need to be treated. Even when we verbally explain the other issues, patients often forget.
I wanted to document that patients could take home and refer to later, containing all their treatment plans, risk factors, and advice on looking after their oral health at home.
When I started using AI in my day-to-day practice, I realised how easily it could help me do all of this. I used off-the-shelf AI tools such as ChatGPT and Claude, and I was surprised by how helpful they were.
I wanted a dental workflow that could organise case information, radiographs, an editable odontogram, and treatment-planning notes together.
That's when I realised I could create something of my own using AI. It could function as a decision-support tool for dentistry, with an odontogram and a chart that I could edit within the tool.
Mariam: You describe Raident AI as a clinician-led decision-support platform. What does it actually help a dentist do, from the point of assessing a patient to developing a treatment plan?
Dr. Pandya: Raident AI can help collect all the information gathered from patients during examinations, including clinical notes, priority issues, radiographs, periodontal charts, and intraoral scans.
It can analyse this information and suggest possible findings, such as bone loss around a tooth or an open margin on a dental crown. You can then decide whether to agree or disagree with these suggestions and add any findings of your own.
It acts like a clinical assistant to help organise information and highlight key points that might otherwise be missed. For example, it can remind you to check a patient's medical history or obtain additional information, such as their HbA1c level, before planning an implant.
The idea came from my own experience of asking my mentors for advice when assessing complex cases. They can give great advice, but they're not always available.
Raident AI can help make the required information more accessible while keeping the dentist involved in the decision-making process.
Raident AI is a clinician-led research and development project that I currently make available without charge. It is designed to support a more consistent approach to treatment planning, with the dentist reviewing the information and making the final clinical decisions.
We may also look at creating a patient-facing app in the future.
Mariam: Looking beyond individual clinics, do you see AI-powered decision-support tools like yours helping bridge the gap in access to quality dental expertise, particularly in resource-constrained or underserved settings?
Dr. Pandya: I see potential for AI to assist clinicians working in underserved settings, where access to dental care and specialist input can be limited.
When appointment time and resources are limited, immediate problems such as pain can take priority. A structured workflow could help clinicians document other needs and discuss a phased plan with the patient.
Prevention and patient education need to remain part of that plan, even when treatment must be staged.
I think AI tools can be very helpful, whether they're used for AI-based diagnosis from X-rays or as tools like Raident that assist dentists. Comprehensive treatment planning takes time, and these tools can help make the process more consistent.
Sometimes, dentists aren't equally trained to look at the patient as a whole. AI reminders could help them consider the bigger picture and provide suggestions.
A major consideration is getting dentists to use the tool. Cost and patient acceptance can also be issues. Patients may not always be comfortable with or understand what AI is doing.
My thoughts on AI have changed over time. Initially, I was worried about how reliable it was and whether it would affect jobs in dentistry. I thought, "It's coming for everybody's job. Why should we use it? How consistent can its information be? I've spent 20 years learning this. How can somebody come and learn it in 20 minutes?"
But I've started looking at how I could use AI in my practice and how it could help me. Now, I'm moving towards building tools with AI and using it in my day-to-day life.
I think we need to recognise how we're using AI, how much information we're giving it, and the purpose for which we're using it. If we keep that in mind and use it responsibly, I think it can be a beneficial tool.
Mariam: How can you distinguish between an AI-generated recommendation that is consistent with clinical guidelines and one that is genuinely appropriate for an individual patient?
Dr. Pandya: A recommendation needs to be checked against the patient’s examination findings, medical history, risk factors, and preferences. The dentist also needs to verify the supporting evidence and decide whether it applies to that patient.
AI can organise information systematically and prompt us to review important details. It can also produce incorrect or incomplete information, so a structured output should never be mistaken for a verified clinical recommendation.
I would not hand over clinical decision-making to AI. The treating clinician remains responsible for reviewing recommendations and deciding what is appropriate.
My goal was to connect existing AI capabilities through a dental treatment-planning workflow. My focus was on organising clinical findings, patient risks, treatment alternatives, and prevention into a phased plan that a dentist could review and revise.
However, dentists still spend a lot of time collecting everything, and sometimes the process becomes more chaotic because there are too many tools.
I wanted to create one tool, Raident, that puts all these puzzle pieces together and simplifies the process.
Mariyam: So, basically, Raident collects real-world data from several sources and compiles it for you, right?
Dr. Pandya: It also has a chatbot feature that you can talk to. You can say, "This patient gave me an updated medical history," and it will retrieve recent research related to that.
For example, it might identify a recent article about bisphosphonates. There's always a debate because something new comes out every day. Can we place an implant? Can we not?
A retrieved paper can be a starting point for reviewing the evidence. The clinician still needs to check the original source, study quality, and relevance to the patient before using it to inform care.
Mariyam: Okay. Does it have a built-in training model as well? What training model do you follow?
Dr. Pandya: Raident is model-agnostic, meaning that it can work with different underlying AI models, such as those from OpenAI or Anthropic. The dental workflow sits around those models. Using different models does not mean the software itself is open-source.
Mariyam: You have shared your AI-assisted treatment-planning approach with professional audiences. Where have you presented or demonstrated this work, and which aspects have you focused on?
Dr. Pandya: I presented at the Overjet AI Summit in Scottsdale in September 2026. My talk focused on how we can bring clinical findings together and organise them into a phased treatment plan. I shared the workflow I have been developing through Raident and how it supports the dentist’s review of the case.
I also spoke about AI in treatment planning during a RIDA Academy continuing education webinar in September 2026. I discussed how AI can help organise information and support conversations with patients, while the dentist remains responsible for the clinical decisions.
My poster, “AI-Assisted Dental Treatment Planning: From Diagnostic Variability to Treatment Predictability,” has also been accepted for the 2026 Greater New York Dental Meeting.
These presentations give other clinicians an opportunity to learn about my approach and consider how they could apply it in their daily practice. Their questions also help me identify areas that need clarification and refine my treatment-planning protocols. It becomes a two-way learning process.
M Subha Maheswari, MSc Biotechnology and Copy Editor at MedBound Times, explores professional recognition, mentorship and leadership with Dr. Pandya.
Subha: You were selected for Incisal Edge's 40 Under 40 and inducted as a Fellow of the Pierre Fauchard Academy. What did these milestones mean to you personally, and how do you view professional recognition at this stage of your career?
Dr. Ekta Pandya: I think it's very humbling. At the same time, it motivates you because these are things you do every day. You wake up, put on your scrubs, go to work, see your patients, teach at NYU, or attend conferences and present papers.
But at the end of the day, when you receive recognition from your peers, it brings another level of happiness. You feel recognised and feel that you've accomplished something and left something behind.
As human beings, that's what we all strive for. We want to feel that we're doing something greater, that we have a purpose in life, that we're giving back to society, and that we're making a difference in the world.
I think recognition gives you that sense of reassurance, both personally and from your peers. It motivates you to do more the following year and continue striving to go beyond what you've already achieved.
Subha: Absolutely. What role have mentors played in your career, and how has your approach to mentoring younger professionals evolved?
Dr. Pandya: I think it's very important to find mentors early on. I was fortunate to find many mentors, and their advice about what they did right and wrong in their careers helped me make decisions.
For example, they can guide you on which continuing education courses to take and which ones might not be worth the money.
For example, the FMR course I took was also recommended by my mentor. He had taken it about 40 years ago and told me, "This is what changed my career. This is where I learned most of the dentistry I practise in my day-to-day life. If this is what you want to do, this would be a good step for you. If it's not something you want to do, don't do it."
I try to do the same thing for my mentees. I hold several mentoring roles, both at my office, at NYU, and through outside organisations.
I try to follow the same approach. You can show them the river, and then they can decide whether they want to drink the water. But you can't spoon-feed them by saying, "This is what you need to do."
Everyone needs to make their own decisions. That's the approach I've learned, and I try to follow it in my day-to-day life.
Subha: That's awesome. If you were advising a dental student today who wanted to combine clinical practice, teaching, and innovation, what would you encourage them to prioritize in the early years?
Dr. Pandya: The first ten years will look different for everyone, depending on what they want to do.
If they want to pursue all three, I would say, first, get better at what you're doing. Understand what you're trying to do, and make sure you know as much as possible about the subject you're going to teach someone.
At least, in your own mind, you should feel that you've explored the subject thoroughly and know a lot about it. Then, when you start teaching, your eyes will be opened, and you'll realise that you don't know everything.
The same applies to innovation. So, keep that in mind. When you have an innovative idea, don't keep it to yourself. Work on it
I began by considering what I could responsibly invest in developing the idea. Starting on a manageable scale allowed me to explore the workflow and to learn from it.
I see it as an investment in improving how I approach treatment planning and in developing an idea that will be useful to other clinicians.
Funny enough, I have a four-year-old daughter, and there's a book called What do you do with an Idea?
That's where I started thinking about how, as we grow older, we overthink our ideas. We ask ourselves, "What if it doesn't work? What will people think of me?" We try to crush our ideas.
When we were younger, we were more inclined to try things because we didn't think as much about society, the world, and everything around us. We probably implemented our ideas instead of worrying about them.
That idea actually came from the book I had been reading to my daughter for two or three months. I thought, "Okay, I should probably implement this."
You learn so much from children's books. That's parenthood for you.
As you grow up and become more focused on your career, you sometimes stop doing things you did as a child. I think that's why you need kids in your life.
Subha: Absolutely. I believe she'll be looking for credit in the footnotes in the future.
Subha: Looking ahead five to ten years, what change do you most hope to see in dentistry, whether in clinical care, education, or technology?
Dr. Ekta Pandya: I hope dentists in the United States become less insurance-driven and more patient-focused.
Whether they're working in a dental service organisation or a private practice, I hope dentists spend more one-on-one time listening to their patients instead of worrying about management, insurance, or other non-clinical matters that consume their time.
AI can help simplify these processes so dentists can spend more time with their patients. That's something I hope to see, and I'm optimistic about it.
Technology is advancing. What we did ten years ago is different from how we do things today. We now 3D-print our temporary restorations and crowns. Things are going to change.
Education is changing, too. AI tools can offer additional ways to review material and test understanding.
For example, students can use tools to generate practice questions or audio summaries. They still need to verify the content against reliable sources and follow their institution’s policies. I think the education system is going to look very different in the future.
Dr. Lizanne: Based on my experience, the use of AI in dentistry is currently quite discouraged in India. Unlike the more open discussion around its use in clinical practice in the United States like we discussed. I feel that its adoption may become more structured in the future, but it is not widely encouraged at present.
MedBound Times expresses its sincere gratitude to Dr. Ekta Pandya, BDS, DDS, for sharing her valuable insights and experiences with us through DocScopy. We appreciate her time and contribution to this conversation on dentistry, full-mouth rehabilitation, mentorship, and the evolving role of artificial intelligence in dental practice.