AI for Medical Students White Paper

ABOUT THIS WHITE PAPER: The reality of AI tools in ANZ medical education

AI has become a staple study tool for medical students, but our baseline survey of 49 medical students across Australia and New Zealand finds a real gap between what these tools promise and what they actually deliver in medical education.

We surveyed students across four institutions in Australia and New Zealand about how they actually use general AI tools like ChatGPT day to day, how much they trust the responses, and where those tools fall down against the demands of a medical curriculum.

The findings explore where AI is already earning its place in students’ study routines, and where it isn’t: the trust gap behind a 4.6-out-of-10 confidence score, the “prompt tax” of constant reprompting and fact-checking, and the curriculum-alignment problem that leaves almost half of students unable to find information that they need.

For educators and program leads, it’s a read on what students are doing with AI right now, what’s working, what isn’t, and what it will take to bring trustworthy, curriculum-aligned AI tools into medical study.

WHAT’S INSIDE
Study overview & demographics — page 4
Who took part, and how the ANZ pilot study was designed.

AI as a core study tool — page 7
How often students turn to AI, which tools they reach for, and what they use them for.

The “prompt tax” — page 8
Why using general AI tools comes at a hidden cost, and what that cost looks like day to day.

Usability gaps & curriculum alignment — page 10
Where general AI tools hold up against the demands of a medical curriculum, and where they don’t.

The path forward — page 14

What a purpose-built, curriculum-aligned AI tool needs to deliver for medical students.

Get your copy of the white paper

Fill out the form below to get instant access to the white paper today.

We’ll also keep you in the loop about future white papers from Elsevier.