Delivering the keynote address at the Pritzker School of Medicine’s annual Medical Education Day on Thursday, Dr. Martin V. Pusic highlighted the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance health professions education and asserted physicians have an opportunity to influence how AI is adopted more broadly.
“Used properly across [complex problems] in little touches in exactly the right measure and thought about by physicians who are used to using dangerous technologies in benefit of their patents is a way in which [we] can model not just for our community but for all society how to use it,” Pusic said.
“How we soak up AI and how we use it for good in a way that recognizes the dangers but at the same time does find the right level is going to be part of the game.”
Pusic, the Director of the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) Research Foundation and an associate professor of pediatrics and emergency medicine at Harvard Medical School, gave his keynote lecture “Artificial Intelligence and the New Digital Landscape: What are the Implications for Health Professions Educators?” as part of the annual event held by the Academy of Distinguished Medical Educators.
Pusic offered examples of potential uses for AI in medical education, including virtual case simulations and precision learning. The challenge, Pusic held, is finding the right balance and understanding AI’s shortcomings.
Recognizing that AI still makes mistakes—such as the “hallucinations” chatbots have become known to have—and emphasizing a need to take responsibility for its inclusion in education and practice, Pusic encouraged health professions educators to think of AI as an enhancement to the medical expertise gained through traditional education.
“This is the notion of adaptive expertise in which [we] have to balance efficiency against innovation,” Pusic said. “Some things we know how to do, and we can do them in a routinized fashion.
“Along comes a disruption, and we have to figure out where for [each] particular patient does using the new innovation advantage them.”
Pusic shared an example from his own practice in which he needed to explain the use of a complex medication to a non-English speaking patient. He turned to an AI chatbot, prompting it to generate an instruction sheet explaining use of the drug. He then used his own expertise to refine the instructions and had the chatbot simplify the instructions to a level the patient could easily understand and translate it to their native language. Finally, Pusic translated the guide back to English to check its accuracy before providing the patient with the version in their native language.
This, Pusic explained, was an instance where AI, used thoughtfully and responsibly in conjunction with his own knowledge, made him a better doctor able to better serve the patient in front of him.
“The world has changed, and our field of endeavor, kind of in terms of the topology of this digital landscape is remarkable,” Pusic said. “As educators, [we] have to advocate across that topology. The AI interventions are a different way of doing this.”
New Fellows and Masters Inducted
Following the keynote address, the Academy inducted five new Fellows of the Academy and two new Master Educators of the Academy.