As we embark on a new academic year, I welcome some of you to WashU Medicine for the first time. Others, I welcome you back! A subgroup of us is just returning from the Association for Medical Education in Europe (AMEE) meeting in Basel, Switzerland. WUSM had an incredibly strong showing at this international meeting of health professions educators. With this month’s excerpt, I would like to highlight some of the innovative work our leaders presented at AMEE and bring you some of my key lessons learned about the future of medical education and areas we will need to focus our energies on in coming years.
Washington University’s faculty made significant contributions to the conference through various workshops, short communications, and poster presentations. Here are some of the key highlights featuring our esteemed faculty:
- Dr. Nichole Zehnder and I kicked off the meeting with a collaborative workshop with colleagues from across the US focused on the use of coaching in day-to-day teaching of students (Tips, Tools & Tactics to Train Front-line Faculty to Apply a Coaching Approach in Their Work with Learners). The workshop concluded with Dr. Zehnder highlighting our outstanding faculty development program for our MD Program Coaches.
- Dr. Steven Ambler presented a Short Communication on Physical Therapy’s first in profession competency-based education program (Program of Assessment Focused on Learning in Physical Therapist Education: Considerations for Interleaving, Spacing, and Bloom’s Taxonomy on Written Assessments). Word on the street is that Steve’s presentation garnered an incredible amount of energy and discussion!
- Dr. Carolyn Dufault and Dr. Amanda Emke each presented e-posters. Carolyn’s was presented in person on Delivering on the Mission of Competency-Based Medical Education (CBME): An Accessible Approach to Providing Personalized Assessment Data Portfolios to Learners. Amanda’s poster was presented online on Implementing a Competency-Based Assessment Program in Undergraduate Medical Education.
- Jan Hanson and I participated in a Best-Evidence-Medical Education workshop on prioritization of scholarship in AI in Medical Education. Jan’s Scoping Review on the use of AI in medical education was the jumping off point for a very valuable discussion.
Jan Hanson and Eve Colson were critical contributors to many of these presentations. I am so proud of this work – not only is it innovative and important, it clearly demonstrates that WUSM is pushing the boundaries not only nationally but internationally in the world of CBME. Go team!
This year’s AMEE Meeting was particularly notable for its emphasis on AI and its implications for medical education. The integration of AI is no longer an emerging trend but a pivotal aspect that is reshaping our pedagogical and administrative educational practices and clinical training environments.
AMEE included a pre-course on AI in medical education, a symposium, and multiple presentations on cutting edge work. Examples included the use of AI to generate individualized learning plans, support communication, grade OSCEs and essays, and support research in medical education, among others. While there remain significant limitations to AI including biases in training data perpetuating bias, inability to incorporate (thus far) body language in communication (70% of all communication is non-verbal), hallucinations, and ethical concerns, there is no doubt that AI holds significant promise in supporting our learners and educators in our work. I think the key lessons I learned from these sessions are: 1) Lots of cool things are going on in AI in health professions education from admissions to pedagogy to assessment to coaching and more; 2) we need to be exploring AI use in our classrooms – teaching about its value and current limitations, encouraging effective prompt use, exploring its strengths and weaknesses, or we will perpetuate misuse; 3) the future is bright when we consider how AI and humans can collaborate to improve the future of health and health professions education; and 4) transparency, validation and human oversight are critical to ethical use. I am excited to continue learning about this at Education Day 2024 on October 15th where our Keynote Speaker will be Dr. Adam Rodman from Harvard Medical School who has written some very interesting pieces on AI and clinical decision-making and participated in a terrific podcast on the subject. The Center for Teaching and Learning has some terrific programming to help you think about incorporation of AI into coursework. I also have the privilege of collaborating on an upcoming Macy Conference on the subject spearheaded by Drs. Holly Humphrey and Bob Wachter and I promise to bring back insights.
As an institution, we are committed to incorporating AI in effective and meaningful ways within our educational and administrative programs. Some things I am committed to seeing move forward are:
- Incorporation of learning about AI in medicine and research into the curricula of our programs – understanding current and emerging uses will be critical to prepare our students for their future practice. Several of our MD students (Quinn Payton, Dani Wilder and Amanda Maytin-Hevia, mentored by Dr. Sara Greer) led a local needs assessment to determine the most important elements for inclusion. That work has been presented nationally and will be on display at Med Ed Day.
- Incorporation of effective AI use – prompt generation, limitations, ethical use of AI – into the co-curricular and curricular education of our students.
- Investigation of AI use in domains such as assessment, simulation, individualized education programming, and streamlining of administrative burden in medical education. Each of these will require significant thought so as to not create unintended harm or perpetuate bias already inherent in our systems.
- Encouraging learners and faculty to engage in research projects focused on developing and testing new AI applications in medical education.
As we launch this academic year, we remain steadfast in our commitment to innovation, excellence, and collaboration. Together, we can harness the power of AI to shape the future of health professions and research education, ensuring our learners are well-equipped to meet the challenges of tomorrow’s healthcare landscape.
DISCLOSURE: Initial draft generated by WashU ChatGPT: https://gpt.wustl.edu/. Note that the platform hallucinated the sessions our faculty participated in and over-estimated the impact of the AI content requiring a complete rewrite. 🙂