As the landscape of artificial intelligence continues to expand, medical journals and organizations like the American Medical Association are churning out articles on how new technologies are revolutionizing health care.
From back-office tasks to patient care, AI is already being used to answer patient questions after hours, assist doctors with monitoring and even diagnosing patients, and streamlining all kinds of administrative functions like medical records and billing.
No, ChatGPT is not going to replace your health care provider anytime soon.
However, it will not be long before AI will be assisting in surgeries or testing out new treatments to determine outcomes before they are prescribed for patients.
Just as important as the innovations are the ethical questions raised by AI, particularly in medicine, said Dr. Sergio Litewka, director of global bioethics at the University of Miami Institute for Bioethics and Health Policy.
Working with instructional designers in the Division of Continuing and International Education (DCIE), Litewka launched an online course last fall on the Ethics of AI in Medicine.
Offered entirely in Spanish, the five-module, self-paced course is geared toward medical professionals in Latin America and the Caribbean who may not have access to the latest information on AI.
"There are very few courses on the ethics of AI in health care – and even less so in Latin America," said Litewka, who is originally from Argentina and has extensive experience with health care education and reform in Latin America. He is also an associate professor in the DeWitt Daughtry Family Department of Surgery at the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine.
The AI in medicine course is a collaboration with the Center for Applied Ethics at the University of Los Andes in Colombia.
"The idea is to make sure physicians are aware of and thinking about the ethical considerations of these new tools," he added. "There is a lot of hype and a lot of opportunity around AI. We don’t want to discourage the use of these tools. But we don’t want to have someone who is so excited about using the tool that they forget to consider the human element."
This is an area in which Litewka has considerable experience. In 2011, he was appointed by President Barack Obama to the US Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. Since then, he has worked on numerous educational programs on ethics in research throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.
Beyond medical professionals, the course on ethics of AI in medicine is also aimed at students in biomedical disciplines, as well as lawyers, journalists, legislators, and others who may have an interest in knowing more about the topic.
"We have about 20 learners right now from Argentina, Mexico, and Colombia, and we are looking to expand that to many other countries in the region," Litewka said.
"UM is very well known and respected in the region," Litewka said. "This is part of our institute’s legacy of service. They know us and they trust us because of our previous work with them on research ethics."
Working with the Office of Professional Advancement, Litewka said the University is now able to offer a certificate to those who pass a series of tests while completing the course. Students also receive a digital badge to place on their websites or LinkedIn pages.
Each of the five modules in the course were peer-reviewed by ethics experts, one a professor at the Division of Ethics in Science and Medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, and the other, a professor from the European University Francisco Valles Institute of Clinical Ethics in Madrid, Spain.
The course covers topics like informed patient consent for use of AI, protection of patient information, the problem of bias in many large language models like ChatGPT, and even more worrisome, "hallucinations," when AI tools make up information that sounds plausible.
The effect of such aberrations could be disastrous in a medical setting, Litewka said.
"If you go to a doctor and the doctor has one opinion and the (AI) model has another, which do you listen to?" he explained. "There is research that shows these models can be more accurate than physicians in some cases. But they can also make things up. It creates a lot of ethical issues."
One of the toughest challenges for the course, Litewka said, is the rapid pace of new AI tools in medicine. Based on the speed of AI development, he said he envisions regular updates being needed to keep the course up-to-date and relevant.
That should not be a problem for instructional designers with the Digital Learning and Design Institute (DLD), which designed and launched the course on the University’s Elevate platform.
"It was great working with Dr. Litewka and his team to bring this course to life," said Claudia Velasquez, the chief designer on the course. "We hope we can continue to work with the School of Medicine on similar projects."
April Macadangdang, assistant director of the institute, said the course provides an important opportunity for Spanish-speaking learners.
"This Spanish-language AI course can significantly benefit learners in Latin America," she added. "It fosters accessibility, improves learning outcomes, promotes career advancement, and equips professionals with the basic knowledge of ethics around AI in health care. It is a great project for us and for our partners in Latin America."
