Rethinking Dentistry in the Age of Climate Change Dr. Christophe Bedos began reading about sustainability after being prompted by a structural shift in Quebec’s research funding strategy during the COVID-19 pandemic. As co-director of the provincial oral health research network (Réseau Québécois de recherche intersectorielle en santé buccodentaire et osseuse durable – RiSBOd), Bedos and his colleagues were told by the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Santé (FRQS) that research networks needed to reinvent themselves. The directive was clear: move away from narrow, diseasebased approaches and instead focus on intersectoral, population-relevant challenges, issues like climate change, socioeconomic inequality, aging and artificial intelligence. This shift forced Bedos to reassess his network’s priorities and, in turn, his own. Although his background was rooted in public health, access to care, and social justice, he realized he had never seriously considered environmental sustainability as a core part of oral health research. As he began exploring the topic, he experienced what he describes as a profound personal awakening. Reading scientific reports—including Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessments—shattered his earlier indifference. “I was in denial,” he admits. “I thought, one or two degrees warmer, so what? But I hadn’t understood the full consequences. It was like being hit by a truck.” That period of reflection and learning—across climate science, biodiversity, economics, history, and even philosophy—reshaped his worldview and led to a reorientation of his research. Today, Dr. Bedos leads a series of interlocking sustainability initiatives at McGill University’s Faculty of Dental Medicine and Oral Health Sciences, including a transformation of its teaching clinic into a more environmentally sustainable clinic. His main collaborator is Dr. Newsha Toreihi, a PhD student and dentist whose passion for environmental justice is rooted in her own early clinical experience during the COVID-19 pandemic in Iran. “I saw how much waste we were producing in the name of infection control,” says Dr. Toreihi. “It made me ask: who’s caring for the planet while we care for the patient?” Dr. Christophe Bedos Dr. Newsha Toreihi 24 | 2025 | Issue 5
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