AI in Medical Education - Everything, everywhere, all at once? (Part 3/3)

AI teachings further afield

Another advantage of virtual bedside teaching with our AI Chatbot system is that students are able to practice clinical history taking without geographical restrictions. With this in mind, Department of Surgery HKU has collaborated with Department of Surgery of the National University of Singapore (NUS), in conducting the world’s first cross-territory virtual bedside teaching in October 2023. Dr. Serene Goh from NUS contributed a virtual Singaporean patient for our HKU final year medical students to clerk, while I contributed a virtual Hong Kong patient for our fellow NUS medical students to clerk. After the case clerking, students from both universities met online in a discussion forum. Clinical, radiological and pathological photos were shown, management plans were discussed. 70 medical students from both universities joined the teaching, the overall feedback was excellent. This is an important first step of international collaboration in medical education, international collaborations like this is going to benefit our students by broadening their vision and horizon in clinical judgments.

Our initial experience on virtual bedside teaching with generative AI chatbot was covered by Jackie Leonard and Anna Murphy at the BBC World Service, where HKU final year medical student Theresa Tse joined me on air in the online interview.

We have seen the opportunities of AI, but is AI really going to take over the world?

Yes, every day it seems, there is one scary story or two about artificial intelligence (AI) in the news – Not long ago, a group of young girls in Spain were fallen victim to AI-generated nude pictures using their own social media profile photos. AI can be constructive, but can be massively destructive too.

For all the notes of caution, it can be easy to forget that there are many potential benefits of AI in medical education. To me, AI is set to truly revolutionize medical education - It offers us more opportunities than challenges. Of course we should never underestimate the negative impacts that AI could bring to us. However, we should always remind ourselves that AI is a tool. Even the most powerful tools or weapons like nuclear arms never take over the world, it is all about who and how they are being utilized.

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