What happens when medical students rely on AI – and never develop their own judgment? | Simar Bajaj and Joseph Sakran
AI’s danger isn’t just in experts losing the ability to reason. It’s that trainees may never learn how to do so in the first place In healthcare, there’s growing concern over doctors becoming less clinically adept as they increasingly rely on AI tools. But what about the trainees – medical students, residents and fellows – who are using these tools before they’ve built their own clinical…
The increasing reliance of medical students on AI tools poses a concerning risk to their clinical development. While it is already a worry that doctors may become less adept at clinical reasoning due to overuse of AI, the more alarming scenario is that trainees might never cultivate their own clinical judgment. This "never-skilling" phenomenon is particularly alarming as it suggests that the inability to reason clinically could become permanent if not addressed early in their education.
OpenEvidence, an AI chatbot designed specifically for clinicians, exemplifies the extent to which AI is being integrated into medical practice. Roughly two-thirds of US doctors utilize this tool, turning to it for help with puzzling symptoms, drug interactions, and clinical guidelines. Trainees are also following suit, resorting to AI at a critical stage when they should be building their clinical reasoning skills.
This reliance on AI during training raises significant questions about the future of medical education and the competence of future doctors. While a clinician who has forgotten how to reason can potentially recover their skills, one who has never learned to reason may reach a point of irreparable deskilling. The challenge lies in ensuring that AI tools serve as aids to enhance, rather than replace, the essential clinical judgment that forms the bedrock of medical practice.
Written by urgent.news from Guardian Technology's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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