Abstract
Artificial intelligence (AI), treated in this study as an umbrella term for AI-enabled clinical and educational technologies rather than as a single platform, is reshaping medical education, including how diagnostic skills, treatment planning, and patient care are taught. This study examines AI integration in medical education through the perceptions and readiness of clinical educators. Guided by the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology, the study explores factors influencing AI adoption in medical training, including performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions. In this exploratory study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 clinical educators in the south-central United States who supervise third-year medical students. Findings suggested six recurring themes: the technological learning curve, the need for hands-on learning, institutional support, mentorship, preservation of human elements, and generational differences in comfort with AI. While some AI-enabled applications may support adaptive and personalized learning, educators expressed concerns about maintaining empathy, patient interaction, and human-centered care. The findings suggest that effective AI integration may require strategic institutional support, ongoing training, and pedagogical change. This study provides insight into developing AI-ready medical education models that balance technical competence with humanistic values.
Description
Copyright: © 2026 by the authors. Published by MDPI on behalf of the Academic Society for International Medical Education. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Publisher
MDPI
Date of publication
Summer 7-2026
Language
english
Persistent identifier
http://hdl.handle.net/10950/5088
Document Type
Article
Recommended Citation
Murphy, T., Vaughn, G., Carpenter, R. E., McKinney, B., & McWhorter, R. (2026). Examining clinical educators’ readiness for artificial intelligence in medical education: An exploratory qualitative study. International Medical Education, 5, Article 65. https://doi.org/10.3390/ime5030065
Publisher Citation
Murphy, T., Vaughn, G., Carpenter, R. E., McKinney, B., & McWhorter, R. (2026). Examining clinical educators’ readiness for artificial intelligence in medical education: An exploratory qualitative study. International Medical Education, 5, Article 65. https://doi.org/10.3390/ime5030065