Campus & Beyond Digital Docs: How AI is Helping Train Medical Students Stories You May Like Book Looks Back at Heady Days of 1970s Big Red Men’s Lacrosse Economist Works to Reduce Surging Rates of Gun Violence Raise a Glass to the Namesake of Zinck’s Night Simulating telehealth, the tech lets future physicians—at Cornell and elsewhere—hone their diagnosis and communication skills Editor’s note: This story was condensed from a feature in the Cornell Chronicle. By Patricia Waldron At Weill Cornell Medicine, students have a new tool for polishing their bedside manner and making a diagnosis: an AI-powered virtual patient that simulates the doctor-patient interaction. The simulator, called MedSimAI, has a text-based chat function and a voice conversation mode that approximates a telehealth visit. It gives students a low-stress setting to practice communicating with empathy and to reason through potential diagnoses. Researchers in the Bowers College of Computing and Information Science are developing the platform in collaboration with medical professionals at Weill Cornell Medicine, Yale, and the University of California, San Francisco. Traditionally, medical students develop their patient interviewing skills through graded interactions with actors posing as patients in a simulation clinic. These Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs) are expensive and time-consuming, however, which limits students’ practice opportunities. Researchers have attempted to simulate this experience digitally, but earlier chatbots did a poor job producing realistic patient responses, and pricey virtual reality-based systems did little to improve accessibility. “Simulation-based learning is known to be highly effective for training future physicians, nurses, veterinarians, and other clinical professionals,” says Rene Kizilcec, associate professor of information science in Bowers and lead researcher on MedSimAI. “Building on the latest advances in generative AI, we can offer students unlimited opportunities to practice their clinical communication and reasoning skills with immediate feedback and just the right level of realism.” Prof. Rene Kizilcec. The MedSimAI platform uses state-of-the-art large language models to generate a patient’s responses based on a script provided by medical educators. It also has a second AI model that evaluates the student’s performance, using the same rubric that experts use to score OSCEs. Stories You May Like Book Looks Back at Heady Days of 1970s Big Red Men’s Lacrosse Economist Works to Reduce Surging Rates of Gun Violence The model gives immediate feedback—instead of waiting days or weeks with traditional OSCEs—and even highlights specific comments that showed empathy or questions that lacked key details. Dr. MacKenzi Nicole Preston—associate director of Weill Cornell Medicine’s Clinical Skills Center, where students practice with robotic mannequins and actors—is working with Kizilcec’s team to test the efficacy of MedSimAI as part of the curriculum. She says feedback from the students has been positive. The AI model gives immediate feedback, and even highlights specific comments that showed empathy or questions that lacked key details. “Part of the physician’s job is being able to communicate in a way that helps patients to be comfortable,” says Preston, also an assistant professor of clinical pediatrics. But in addition to showing compassion, she says, “it’s essential that physicians learn to ask the right questions and interpret the information they get in a way that brings them closer to the truth.” Yann Hicke, MEng ’15, a doctoral student in computer science, has been building the platform and developing specific cases to help students prepare for their OSCEs. Hicke (right) talks to an AI-generated "patient." “The platform provides the opportunity for ‘deliberate practice,’ where students can see their strengths and weaknesses and seek out specific cases that let them practice skills they are lacking,” he says. This year, first-year students took a complete medical history through MedSimAI as part of a full-day simulation treating a patient with rheumatic heart disease, while second-years used it in their pediatric rotation to practice taking a child’s history from a parent. “It’s very natural to use,” says first-year Kellen Vu. “It’s voice-based, so that lets the conversation flow smoothly. I think it’s important for practicing your bedside manner, because tone and phrasing matter a lot in real life with patients.” Top: First-year med student Shazain Ahmed Khan practices patient interaction with MedSimAI. (All images provided) Published March 27, 2025 Leave a Comment Cancel replyOnce your comment is approved, your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *Comment * Name * Class Year Email * Save my name, email, and class year in this browser for the next time I comment. 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