Artificial intelligence (AI) driven by machine learning (ML) algorithms is a part of the computer science sector that is increasing well-received within the healthcare landscape. However, graduate medical education and other teaching programs within academic health hospitals in the United States and beyond have yet to nurture students and trainees through the use of these emerging technology.
While the general public is familiar with AI and its impact on healthcare results such as furnishing clinicians with enhanced diagnostics; if medical education does not begin to educate medical students about AI and its applications then these technological advancements will be finite and its impact on patient care.
The utilisation of PubMed search with ‘machine learning’ as the medical subject heading term has allowed researchers to discover that the number of papers published in the area of ML has multiplied since the beginning of this decade. On the contrary, the number of publications correlated to undergraduate and graduate medical education have remained rather consistent since 2010.
Since becoming aware of the need to teach students and trainees within the Boston University Medical Campus about ML, an introductory course was designed and conducted at BUSM. The objective of the course is to educate the next generation of medical professionals and young researchers with biomedical and life sciences backgrounds about ML notions and assist in preparing them for the continuous data science revolution.
It is believed that if medical education starts to integrate ML curriculum, physicians may come to realise the conditions and future applications where AI could potentially benefit clinical decision making and management early on in their career and be equipped to make use of these tools more effectively when beginning practice. As medical education begins to consider the competencies for physicians, ML should be integrated into information technology and the education in that discipline. It is critical to consider about AI advancements and how it can be utilized in patient care. This is because technology without physician knowledge of its aptitude and applications seem illogical and will not help increase perpetuate healthcare costs.
Source: Science Daily
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