Actionable companion · Assessment & reasoning

Learning with agency: Incorporating ChatGPT in Medical Informatics Education: Mixed Methods Study on Student Perceptions and Experiential Integration Proposals

AI-assisted editorial implementation guide, separate from the original research. Proposed actions are not claims or recommendations attributed to the source authors. No independent peer review of this guide is asserted.

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Evidence and context

Title and abstract screening; stage labels describe reported settings, not verified numerical ages. Design labels require full-text appraisal. Reported stage(s): Age / stage not established. Health-professions learning must be distinguished from K–12 instruction.

Original authors’ abstract, reproduced under the linked source license:

Abstract Background The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, such as ChatGPT, in the educational landscape has the potential to enhance the learning experience of medical informatics students and prepare them for using AI in professional settings. The incorporation of AI in classes aims to develop critical thinking by encouraging students to interact with ChatGPT and critically analyze the responses generated by the chatbot. This approach also helps students develop important skills in the field of biomedical and health informatics to enhance their interaction with AI tools. Objective The aim of the study is to explore the perceptions of students regarding the use of ChatGPT as a learning tool in their educational context and provide professors with examples of prompts for incorporating ChatGPT into their teaching and learning activities, thereby enhancing the educational experience for students in medical informatics courses. Methods This study used a mixed methods approach to gain insights from students regarding the use of ChatGPT in education. To accomplish this, a structured questionnaire was applied to evaluate students’ familiarity with ChatGPT, gauge their perceptions of its use, and understand their attitudes toward its use in academic and learning tasks. Learning outcomes of 2 courses were analyzed to propose ChatGPT’s incorporation in master’s programs in medicine and medical informatics. Results The majority of students expressed satisfaction with the use of ChatGPT in education, finding it beneficial for various purposes, including generating academic content, brainstorming ideas, and rewriting text. While some participants raised concerns about potential biases and the need for informed use, the overall perception was positive. Additionally, the study proposed integrating ChatGPT into 2 specific courses in the master’s programs in medicine and medical informatics. The incorporation of ChatGPT was envisioned to enhance student learning experiences and assist in project planning, programming code generation, examination preparation, workflow exploration, and technical interview preparation, thus advancing medical informatics education. In medical teaching, it will be used as an assistant for simplifying the explanation of concepts and solving complex problems, as well as for generating clinical narratives and patient simulators. Conclusions The study’s valuable insights into medical faculty students’ perspectives and integration proposals for ChatGPT serve as an informative guide for professors aiming to enhance medical informatics education. The research delves into the potential of ChatGPT, emphasizes the necessity of collaboration in academic environments, identifies subject areas with discernible benefits, and underscores its transformative role in fostering innovative and engaging learning experiences. The envisaged proposals hold promise in empowering future health care professionals to work in the rapidly evolving era of digital health care. Keywords: education, medical informatics, artificial intelligence, AI, generative language model, ChatGPT

What kind of evidence is this?

Conversational & pedagogical agents · Qualitative / mixed methods

Stage: Age / stage not established. Screening labels describe reported context and study-design language. They are not a risk-of-bias rating or proof of effectiveness for an age band.

Study methods · source passage

A structured questionnaire was designed and submitted to the ethics committee of Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto (105/CEFMUP/2023) to ensure ethical considerations in conducting this research and obtain approval for data collection. Students who participated in the questionnaire were explicitly informed that their participation in the research was entirely voluntary and were assured of confidentiality and anonymity regarding their responses.

Limitations and uncertainty · source passage

The low number of questionnaire’s responses is a limitation of the study. However, it is important to highlight that the survey aimed to provide an initial insight into the perspectives of medical informatics students at the FMUP regarding the use of ChatGPT in teaching. The primary purpose of the survey was exploratory in nature, serving as a preliminary assessment to inform future initiatives rather than a comprehensive study with a large sample. The other limitation lies in the absence of practical implementation of the proposed ChatGPT incorporation in the current academic year. As a result, the actual impact on the teaching and learning process remains uncertain, and the benefits of AI use in medical informatics education require further empirical verification. However, the study provides valuable groundwork for future exploration and collaboration in exploring AI’s potential in education. While the ideas presented hold promise, empirical evaluation in the upcoming academic term will be imperative to ascertain their effectiveness and measure their impact on students’ learning experiences. Further research and assessment will be necessary to determine the concrete effects and refine the integration strategies. Until then, the study stands as a stepping stone for stimulating ongoing dialogue and inspiring future research endeavors in the dynamic field of AI-driven education in the teaching of medical informatics.

Design the system before the pilot

Define whether the agent asks questions, gives hints, explains or assesses. Test hallucinated feedback, excessive praise, misleading confidence and responses when the learner is confused. A conversational interface alone does not establish autonomous agency.

Use common rubrics, blind scoring where feasible and a fresh unaided reasoning task. Document permissible assistance and avoid treating AI-detector scores as proof of misconduct.

A 90-day district pilot

Days 1–15 · Appraise. Have the curriculum lead and a teacher read the methods and limitations. Record the study design, sample, comparator, outcomes and evidence gaps. Define a local question that the study can help inform.
Days 16–30 · Design. Treat the paper as background evidence until its population is verified in the full text. Do not assign an age-specific intervention or extend adult results to children. Name an accountable owner and set the baseline, success threshold and budget before implementation.
Days 31–60 · Test. Start with a small voluntary cohort, preserve an accessible non-AI route and require teacher review. Use synthetic or de-identified examples; approve data handling and tool terms through district processes.
Days 61–90 · Decide. Extract the participant ages or education stage, recruitment, task and comparator before selecting a local pilot. If these cannot be established, retain the paper for design discussion rather than age-band efficacy claims. Compare with baseline, document uncertainty and stop or revise if learning worsens, access is unequal or critical errors persist.

The board decision brief

Report the learning problem, evidence quality, participating population, total cost including review time, measured benefit, errors, access differences and remaining uncertainties. Make a dated recommendation to stop, revise or expand. A positive perception survey alone does not establish learning improvement.

Attribution and reuse

Sabrina Magalhães Araujo; Ricardo Cruz-Correia. Incorporating ChatGPT in Medical Informatics Education: Mixed Methods Study on Student Perceptions and Experiential Integration Proposals. JMIR Medical Education (2024-03-20). https://doi.org/10.2196/51151

Companion prepared 2026-10-30. Original authorship and DOI are preserved. The abstract is an attributed source extract; the implementation plan is new AI-assisted editorial material, offered under the same CC BY 4.0 license. This guide has not undergone independent peer review.