U.S. medical schools vary widely in AI education, from optional lectures to required courses. At Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine in Nutley, N.J., leaders are working to define and teach AI competency without compromising core clinical skills.
From an education perspective, the medical school is focused on helping students responsibly use AI. From a career-preparation lens, the school is tasked with teaching future physicians how AI is changing the healthcare industry.
Two to three years ago, people avoided the AI-in-medical-school conversation, according to Miriam Hoffman, MD, Hackensack Meridian’s vice dean of academic affairs. Then, an ambush of webinars on AI overwhelmed the industry. Now, those in charge of medical school curricula are acknowledging the necessity of training students on how to use AI.
Hackensack Meridian medical school, which welcomed its first class of medical students in 2018, incorporates AI healthcare content into its curriculum. Under Dr. Hoffman’s leadership, the school assembled an AI task force of clinicians, nonclinicians, student representatives, alumni and other stakeholders to define AI competency, as well as how to teach and measure it.
The medical school is currently tackling when and how to introduce AI in curricula.
“We don’t know what the world is going to look like in 15 years in terms of, will those cognitive skills be different? Will they not be necessary? Will there be other skills [they need]?” Dr. Hoffman said. “So we need to figure out what to teach them, train them and hold them accountable.”
While medical schools wrestle with timing and scope, clinical settings are already adopting AI technologies, according to Charles Binkley, MD, director of AI ethics and quality at Hackensack Meridian Health, the medical school’s parent health system.
“Health systems are not going to wait for medical schools to teach about AI,” Dr. Binkley said. “We have to have very close collaborations. And that’s really part of my role, is to help bridge that collaboration between the medical school and the health system.”
As an example, Dr. Binkley said a medical student’s first clinical note should not be written by an ambient scribe, because writing a note helps the student develop clinical reasoning skills. While AI tools can assist documentation, he said, students must first learn how to reason independently.
“I just want to say that these clinical reasoning skills are not going to go away, period. AI is not going to make them obsolete,” Dr. Binkley said. “As a matter of fact, AI is going to make them, I believe, more important.”
Dr. Hoffman added that some ambient AI products only begin recording once a clinical question is asked, excluding the rapport and therapeutic relationship that precede it and are essential to empathetic, patient-centered care.
To address those risks, Hackensack Meridian teaches students how to “pull back the curtain” on AI tools, such as OpenEvidence — by assessing inputs and trustworthiness — while also training faculty to mentor students in responsible AI use.
Ultimately, Dr. Binkley said even highly accurate AI tools require careful physician oversight, noting that small errors can be consequential without strong clinical reasoning skills.
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