The Radiologist Without a Radiology Centre: How Teleradiology and AI Are Changing Careers in Dental Imaging
Pune, 11 September 2026: A dental radiologist may no longer need to be sitting beside the machine that produces the scan, a shift that M.A. Rangoonwala College of Dental Sciences and Research Centre, Pune, believes could significantly change how young dentists look at careers in Oral Medicine and Radiology. As CBCT imaging, cloud-based reporting and artificial intelligence become more closely connected, expertise in interpreting an image can increasingly have value beyond the walls of a single diagnostic centre.
Cone Beam Computed Tomography, or CBCT, has already changed the amount of information available to dentists. Unlike a conventional two-dimensional dental X-ray, CBCT can provide three-dimensional views of teeth, bone and surrounding structures.
This can be useful in areas such as implant planning, oral surgery, orthodontics and selected complex endodontic cases. But taking the scan is only the first step. Someone must understand what it shows.
That is where MDS Oral Medicine & Radiology (OMDR) has an important role.
Digital technology is now allowing scans taken at one location to be transferred electronically for specialist review elsewhere. Indian dental imaging businesses are already offering remote CBCT reporting services, creating networks between imaging centres, referring dentists and oral radiologists.
For an OMDR specialist, this potentially changes the traditional career model. Instead of viewing a CBCT machine as the starting point of a diagnostic practice, expertise itself can become part of a referral network. A specialist may contribute through interpretation, reporting, treatment planning and consultation while working with dentists and imaging centres.
Artificial intelligence could make this field even more interesting.
AI-assisted dental imaging systems can help identify anatomical structures and flag areas that may require attention. There are also emerging roles involving dentists and dental specialists reviewing or validating images and annotations used to develop AI systems.
However, AI does not remove the need for clinical judgement. A computer may highlight something on an image, but deciding whether it matters to a particular patient requires professional knowledge. In that sense, AI may increasingly function as a second reader, while the trained specialist provides context and judgement.
The changes are also forcing dental colleges to think about whether postgraduate education should expose students to the workflows developing around their specialty.
At Rangoonwala, this thinking has been incorporated into its Career Plus programme. For OMDR postgraduates, the planned training portfolio includes 200 supervised CBCT reports, 30 digital implant plans and exposure to AI-assisted imaging.
“Every MDS specialisation gives a student depth, and that depth must remain at the heart of postgraduate education. But a career is rarely built on depth alone. We also want our students to leave with breadth — exposure to technologies, clinical workflows and professional situations beyond the narrow boundaries of their specialisation,” said Dr Vivek Hegde, Dean, M.A. Rangoonwala College of Dental Sciences and Research Centre.
Career Plus runs alongside the recognised MDS curriculum and does not change the student’s specialist qualification. Its wider modules include oral oncology, laser dentistry, supervised implant and microscope-based clinical exposure, and entrepreneurship.
The programme is built into the postgraduate training experience for MDS Oral Medicine & Radiology (OMDR) and MDS Oral Pathology, while students from other MDS specialties can opt for it as an additional programme.
For young dentists in Pune considering where dental technology is heading, the career question may therefore be changing. The radiologist of the future may not necessarily be defined by the machine they own, but by their ability to understand, interpret and connect the information that machine produces.
