UC receives grant for AI use in medical education

The University of Cincinnati is turning to artificial intelligence to help solve a problem in medical training. The College of Medicine was awarded a grant valued at more than $1 million to use AI in advanced physician training through personalized learning, as Spectrum News recently reported.

The College of Medicine saw that medical trainees face insufficient high-quality feedback to inform them while working in a clinical setting. So the college went after a grant that will allow students to use systems and devices in their training environment, like AI glasses and smartphones, to capture interactions.

“I’ve always sort of been interested in how AI and medicine can kind of be used jointly,'“ said UC medical student Ivy Xue. “I’ve done a few projects even in my time as an undergrad and even a little bit before college. So to be able to see this sort of implemented as I’m progressing through my medical education, I’m really excited for it.”

Xue is thrilled about the new AI glasses and believes this will help in the development of patient care skills. 

“We have encounters right now with standardized patients in the room, but it’s very much like a you work with a couple other med students, so it’s like a team-based setting,” said Xue. “And also, you know, there’s only so much feedback that we can get. Being able to get more reps in and get more individualized feedback, real time, I think it will be a really great improvement.”

According to the university, the data collected from these devices will help trainees refine how they connect with patients and think through complex diagnoses. 

“We started this a few years ago with a technology that simulates patient encounters through a web environment, and so we have deployed that through all four years of the medical education curriculum and are working to put that into residency,”  said Laurah Turner, associate dean of artificial intelligence and educational informatics. “And what’s great about this is it allows students to do reps.”

Turner said this grant was difficult to get. The American Medical Association chose 11 team recipients from among nearly 200 applicants. 

“The more they do it, the more the system learns about them,” said Turner. “So, for example, if a learner always forgets to take a social history or doesn’t really have a great rapport, the system learns about that and then adapts and provides more cases or scenarios like this.”

Xue thinks this is the future of the medical field and is excited to see what the new AI tool has to bring. 

“It does feel sort of like this is the future that we’ve been seeing on television sort of thing, and I think it definitely will be a surreal experience, but looking forward to it,” said Xue.

Watch the complete Spectrum News report.

Featured image at top: iStock/Vertigo3D.