First, thank you to all that joined us at UBC’s Centre for Health Education Scholarship (CHES) Celebration of Scholarship!
Dr. Meera Anand and I led a roundtable discussion titled “DocBot 101: Making Sense of AI Before It Makes Sense of You.” Our goal was to explore how we can prepare learners to critically engage with artificial intelligence before it begins defining those terms for us.
Below is a brief summary of what we gathered from our dialogue.
We began by asking participants to choose one word that captured their perceptions and experiences with AI in health professions education. Their words painted a landscape of complexity and contradiction:
ever-present, challenging, uncertainty, opportunity, confabulation, hesitating, efficiency, slop :).
These reflect the promise, expectations, and discomfort of a technology reshaping how we teach, learn, and make decisions in both clinical and academic spaces.
What We Heard from Educators: Participants described learners using AI for summarizing literature, interpreting research, drafting emails, grammar correction, and assessment shortcuts. Some found AI slowed them down due to editing demands. Concerns emerged around students growing reliance on its use for creativity and ideation, yet most agreed AI is now embedded, unavoidable, and must be taught.
Preparing Faculty for the AI Era: Faculty are testing AI in their teaching, particularly for case development, and observing its implementation in hospitals, including Vancouver Coastal Health: VCH AI Hub.
When asked how to prepare faculty for AI’s growing presence, key ideas surfaced:
+ Create formal spaces for dialogue and training.
+ Develop institutional policies to guide staff and learners.
+ Use AI to teach ground-truthing, identify confabulations, and strengthen digital literacy.
+ Integrate AI into professionalism guides to clarify boundaries and etiquette.
+ Teach how AI scribes and transcription tools err.
+ Include prompt engineering and assignment design that mitigates over-reliance and academic dishonesty.
The takeaway: educators and administrators share a responsibility to equip learners with the frameworks, skepticism, and confidence to engage with AI responsibly and reflexively.
Learn more about the CHES Celebration of Scholarship here.
Family Medicine Residency Site: Abbotsford-Mission 