Nerd

Spent two days nerding out at AAMC’s “2026 Emerging Technologies for Teaching and Learning: Digital Demonstrations Virtual Conference” and loved it.

What landed for me:

1. AI is an incredible tool when it comes to synthesizing data and finding patterns in these massive sets, but at this point in its development, it fails to convey the passion and excitement that come with teaching a subject you love and live through your being. It’s that energy, transmitted when we are talking about a topic, that engages and captures learners’ attention. It’s our story, and the narrative we create, that helps the learner retain the moral on a cellular level. Some people think we can offload that to AI, but the reality is that there’s nothing more satisfying (to me) than looking into the eyes of another human being and saying, “Oh my gosh, you are never going to believe this! NASA just got this crazy, super-close image of Jupiter, and it looks just like van Gogh’s Starry Night…and!!”
2. AI can strengthen clinical reasoning teaching if we design it like a coach and not an answer machine. When I think about faculty development for healthcare professionals, AI can help craft a learning journey tailored to their needs and interests. However, it’s still important to connect a human in that process because they represent not just the coach, but also the learner.
3. Narrative assessment and feedback can be improved at scale, but only if we protect meaning, context, and fairness. We have a responsibility to educate faculty on how to write meaningful assessments about their learners. AI can assist by providing a framework for that, but at the end of the day, the quality of the data going in is more important.

I am leaving with a shortlist of ideas to bring into faculty development and program improvement work, especially around assessment quality, defensible decision-making, and accreditation readiness. For accreditation, I think many medical education programs are exploring the use of AI. Based on what I learned, accreditation bodies have not provided much guidance on the use of AI in reporting. One institution wisely suggested that you disclose the use of AI in the reporting process and that humans reviewed both the input and output data. Great advice and great conference!

#MedicalEducation #AI #Assessment #FacultyDevelopment #ProgramEvaluation #EthicsInAI