Dental education faces a uniquely intense challenge: compressing thousands of hours of clinical training and competency into just four years, while ensuring students develop the anatomical fluency, fine motor skills, and clinical judgment needed to perform invasive dental and oral surgical procedures safely. As Dr. David Rolf puts it, “Dental school is unlike any other healthcare education, where students routinely perform invasive surgical patient care and become practice-ready licensed general dentists in four years. No other doctoral health profession program does this.”

In this powerful session, Dr. Rolf—Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Periodontics at Case Western Reserve University School of Dental Medicine—shares how immersive 3D learning is helping students to:

• Enhance experiential and visual learning to see anatomy from a new perspective.

• Navigate into and around anatomical structures in ways impossible with cadavers.

• Integrate 3D anatomy and neuroanatomy into local anesthesia and oral surgery skills.

With anatomy as the foundation for nearly every procedure, spatial understanding isn’t just important—it’s everything.