Generative AI as Librarian: A New Model for Surgical Education

Generative artificial intelligence (GAI) is anticipated to transform medical education, and many studies have already been published reporting its effectiveness, accuracy, and feasibility as a "tutor" to help medical students learn in different didactic contexts. This perspective reviews this literature and highlights an understudied use-case for GAI: helping medical students to prepare for context-specific intraoperative learning during surgical clerkships. We propose a "librarian," rather than tutor, method for GAI deployment in undergraduate medical education, where students dictate their learning objectives and receive specific direction to guide their individualized preparation, instead of the passive reception of didactic information which defines tutor-GAI use. We describe the librarian-GAI model in practical terms, providing template queries and prompt-engineering guidance for learners.