Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology HST.947: Medical Artificial Intelligence

The first 11⁄2 or 2 years of training in most U.S. and Canadian medical schools focuses on building an understanding of the pathophysiologic mechanisms of common diseases. An assumption exists that students will retain this knowledge and have the ability to recall and apply it in real clinical settings. However, some evidence from the cognitive science and education literature call such assumptions into question[1, 2]. Such studies suggest that the recall of pathophysiology knowledge obtained from didactic lectures is poor in clinical situations. Although many medical schools have made efforts to move away from didactic lectures and teach pathophysiology in settings that are more representative of clinical practice (i.e., problem-based learning), the majority of pathophysiology is still taught in a didactic manner.