Worcester Medicine - Winter 2023

Page 23

WORCESTER MEDICINE

A.I. In Medicine

As I See It Sonia N. Chimienti, MD FIDSA

A

s a medical educator, it’s been tough to avoid conversations regarding the potential impact of generative artificial intelligence (Gen-AI) and machine learning (ML) in healthcare education and delivery. A PubMed search of “generative artificial intelligence medical education” this past month revealed that annual publications on this topic jumped exponentially in the past few years, from less than 50 prior to 2018, to 416 in 2022, and 519 so far in 2023. I offer this “As I See It” perspective with the knowledge that many of you may be way ahead of the game in this area than I am. For those who are latecomers to the conversation, like me, I hope that I can convince you that the time has come to jump onto the train or be left at the station. We need knowledge-informed input, as educational leaders and as care providers, to ensure that Gen-AI and ML facilitate learning, and ethical and equitable care of patients.

…I am not suggesting that we endorse computer science or technology education at the expense of learning the science… Students are already ahead of us in this content area. Last spring, I was chatting with a premedical student with a background in computer science, lamenting the inefficiencies of my clinical environment. I expressed my longing for technology that will help me create treatment plans without repeating costly testing, summarize my conversations with patients, and collate in milliseconds the medical data that took me hours to collect from the EMR. The student politely let me rant, and then shared that this technology already exists. And sure enough, during an AI summit a few weeks ago, a leader from a health system outlined the technology that is currently in place and under development for their providers. This

company has created a “Responsible Use of AI” program and a “Machine Learning Review Board”, to review AI tools, assess the “risk for harm” and establish “review processes for vendor-acquired AI”. The company is using AI-enhanced virtual assistants to help direct calls from patients and enhance personalized care, and utilizes data analytics, natural language processing, and ML to analyze patient outcomes. While this was the only healthcare company presenting at the summit, I suspect that healthcare companies worldwide are utilizing similar systems and approaches, to optimize and improve care. The challenge is that health professions students may not be learning about this technology (including the opportunities and limitations) during their educational programs and may not be well-prepared to contribute to initiatives and conversations ensuring ethics and avoidance of potential bias. To be clear – I am not suggesting that we endorse computer science or technology education at the expense of learning the science, communication skills, and teamwork that are fundamental to the education of a healthcare provider. Indeed, it is possible to incorporate Gen-AI and ML in our education programs in ways that facilitate learning and prepare students for a changing healthcare environment without sacrificing the critical knowledge and skills that they must learn; these tools may actually facilitate learning for students at a time when the volume of information to be learned and the competing demands on their time contribute to stress. A recent IAMSE (International Association of Medical Science Educators) series* brought thought leaders from around the country together in this area, highlighting the opportunities and obligations of medical educators to learn, embrace, and incorporate AI in our teaching. The IAMSE Fall 2023 Webcast Audio Seminar Series, called “Brains, Bots & Beyond: Exploring AI’s Impact on Medical Education” included five sessions addressing the opportunities and challenges that we must address as medical educators. Each of the sessions in this series was extraordinary - exciting, invigorating, expertly delivered - and just a bit overwhelming. Such sessions can serve as a guidepost for healthcare education, to help us with the innovation and reform required to prepare our students to be the “humans in the loop” to ensure equity, ethics, and holistic analyses. By incorporating these into health sciences education, we can prepare students for their roles as providers, researchers, and leaders who will ensure that patients remain at the center of these developments. We need to prepare our students not only to be aware of what is possible but to contribute as informed advocates for our patients, who are entrusting us with this responsibility. This is not going to be easy – curricula need to be adapted, and we need to support our already busy educators in doing so in an interdisciplinary and collaborative fashion. Fortunately, the IAMSE sessions provided a compelling overview to help us understand why this is important, and what we need to do. These are exciting times, not only for healthcare education but also for clinical care. With our engagement as educators, we can properly position our future healthcare providers to help inform the implementation of

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Articles inside

UMass Memorial Health

1min
page 28

In Memoriam - Edward Amaral, MD

2min
page 27

In Memoriam - Christopher Linden, MD

3min
page 27

Book Review - The Masters of Medicine by Andrew Lam, MD

3min
page 26

Legal Consult

6min
pages 24-25

AdCare Hospital

1min
page 24

As I See It

5min
pages 23-24

Is it Time to Rethink How We Teach the Art of the Clinical Interview? A Medical Student Posits the Use of AI to Drill Doctoring and Clinial Skills

5min
page 22

Artificial Intellegence in Nursing

6min
pages 20-21

The Quest for Childhood Injury Prevention - Embodied in Safety Quest

5min
pages 19-20

Cartoon

1min
page 18

Artificial Intelligence in Health Professions Education

5min
pages 17-18

Physicians Insurance

1min
page 16

Pixels, Patterns, and Patients: Radiology Residency in the AI Revolution

5min
pages 15-16

Digital Inclusion of Elderly People: Designing a purposeful serious game interface with memorable music

5min
pages 14-15

Can AI be a Good Doctor?: What measuring a computer's medical ability teaches us about human doctors

6min
pages 12-13

Do Patients Want Artificial Intelligence or Human Intelligence?

5min
pages 11-12

AI Infographic

1min
page 10

AI in Healthcare: Balancing Innovation with Regulation

7min
pages 9-10

Artificial Intelligence in Mental Healthcare: A Story of Hope and Hazard

7min
pages 7-8

Annual Cottle Lecture - The Age of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine

1min
page 7

Music Worcester

1min
page 6

The Doctor Will See You Now

6min
page 5

Editorial

3min
page 4

Reliant Medical Group

1min
page 2
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