Policy Brief: AI Readiness in Medical Education: Assessing Current Gaps and Future Outlook

<ns3:p>Artificial intelligence (AI) is swiftly emerging as a core component in the transformation of global healthcare systems, with its effectiveness contingent upon the readiness of the workforce, especially future physicians. The incorporation of AI into medical education must uphold essential principles, including ethical considerations, the preservation of the physician-patient relationship, and the primacy of human judgment. Preparing medical students for this evolution equips them to effectively leverage emerging technologies in clinical practice. This policy brief aims to establish a framework for preparing medical students for the future of AI in healthcare, assisting policymakers in universities, governments, and health authorities in developing effective educational programs. It presents prompt engineering as an innovative skill for medical students, facilitating personalized AI interactions in clinical simulations and ethical decision-making, while addressing existing gaps in current curricula. Incorporating findings from a 2025 cross-sectional study involving 1,619 medical students, this brief indicates a moderate level of AI readiness (61.34/100), with cognition identified as the weakest domain. This underscores the necessity for targeted curricula to bridge gaps in AI knowledge and cultivate practical skills such as prompt engineering for clinical simulations.</ns3:p>