Generative AI · Education leadership

Actionable companion · Assessment and evidence of learning

From evidence to district action: Dall-E in hand surgery: Exploring the utility of ChatGPT image generation

AI-assisted editorial implementation guide. The district actions are proposed applications, not findings or recommendations attributed to the original authors. No additional peer review is asserted.

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Evidence and context

Health-professions education context: test transfer to K–12 rather than assuming it.

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

Background Artificial intelligence (AI) has significantly influenced various medical fields, including plastic surgery. Large language model (LLM) chatbots such as ChatGPT and text-to-image tools like Dall-E and GPT-4o are gaining broader adoption. This study explores the capabilities and limitations of these tools in hand surgery, focusing on their application in patient and medical education. Methods Utilizing Google Trends data, common search terms were identified and queried on ChatGPT-4.5 and ChatGPT-3.5 from the following categories: “Hand Anatomy”, “Hand Fracture”, “Hand Joint Injury”, “Hand Tumor”, and “Hand Dislocation”. Responses were graded on a 1–5 scale for accuracy and evaluated using the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool (PEMAT), and DISCERN instrument. GPT 4o, DALL-E 3, and DALL-E 2 illustrated visual representations of selected ChatGPT responses in each category, which were further evaluated. Results ChatGPT-4.5 achieved a DISCERN overall score of 3.80 ± 0.23. Its responses averaged 91.67 ± 0.29 for PEMAT understandability and 54.67 ± 0.55 for actionability. Accuracy was 4.47 ± 0.52, with a Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level of 9.26 ± 1.04. ChatGPT-4.5 consistently outperformed ChatGPT-3.5 across all evaluation metrics. For text-to-image generation, GPT-4o produced more accurate visuals compared to DALL-E 3 and DALL-E 2. Conclusions This study highlights the strengths and limitations of ChatGPT-4.5 and GPT-4o in hand surgery education. While combining accurate text generation with image creation shows promise, these AI tools still need further refinement before widespread clinical adoption.

A 90-day district pilot

  1. 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.
  2. Days 16–30 · Design. Redesign one low-stakes assessment: require a first attempt, an AI-assisted revision, a source-check log and a short oral explanation. Use the same rubric for the comparison task. Name an accountable owner and set the baseline, success threshold and budget before implementation.
  3. 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.
  4. Days 61–90 · Decide. Blind-score reasoning, factual accuracy and unaided transfer on a fresh task. Record suspected misconduct separately from demonstrated evidence. 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

Daniel Soroudi; Daniel S. Rouhani; Alap Patel; Ryan Sadjadi; Reta Behnam-Hanona; Nicholas C. Oleck; Israel Falade; Merisa Piper; Scott L. Hansen. Dall-E in hand surgery: Exploring the utility of ChatGPT image generation. Surgery Open Science (2025-05-10). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sopen.2025.04.012

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.