According to a recent announcement, the new Transforming Lifelong Learning Through Precision Education Grant Program aims to create learning pathways for medical students, residents and practicing physicians that are more personalized and true to life.
“As new tools emerge, we have an opportunity to build learning environments that are more engaging, more adaptable, and better aligned with the realities of practicing medicine,” AMA CEO John Whyte said in a public statement. “Our goal is to ensure that innovation strengthens the physician experience and creates a future where every physician is fully equipped to meet the needs of patients.”
AMA's program comes at a time when AI is increasingly being incorporated into medical education for simulation and feedback. Ohio universities are leveraging AI and virtual reality to simulate patient care, the University of Maryland is planning a surgery center that uses AI to analyze video footage of procedures on cadavers and provide feedback, and the Mayo Clinic is pushing AI applications to read patient scans.
AMA's news release said the program received 197 applications. The 11 institutions chosen will receive more than $1 million each to spend over four years.
“We deliberately curated a rich mix of projects, spanning all levels of learners, multiple clinical disciplines and applying a variety of technological approaches,” Kimberly Lomis, AMA’s vice president for medical education innovations, said in a public statement.
Some projects will use AI to provide feedback and coaching on clinical reasoning and interactions with patients, Lomis said. For example, at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, students, residents and fellows will carry a communication tool with them as they care for patients and receive AI-generated coaching on their performance. At Mount Sinai in New York, ambient listening and natural language processing technologies will help provide personalized feedback on outpatient care, as well as feedback for faculty on the effectiveness of their teaching.
Other projects use AI to better understand student progress and mastery. Both the University of Michigan and the Meritus School of Osteopathic Medicine plan to use data to create online dashboards identifying individual learning gaps.
In addition to applying AI to teaching and learning, teams will research the security precautions and bias monitoring necessary for using data and AI in health-care situations, as well as what traits help students succeed with data-driven practices. This includes examining the benefits and challenges that come with sharing data across multiple sites.
“We’re going to learn not only about the technology, but about the attributes of the physician or trainee who responds well to this kind of data-driven approach,” Lomis said.
