Twelve tips: Using generative AI to create and optimize content for virtual patient simulations

Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is increasingly being used in medical education, including the creation of content for clinical virtual patient simulation (VPS). We share practical insights drawn from our experience as medical educators, designed to help other educators integrate GenAI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude. We provide 12 practical tips that illustrate how GenAI can be used for the creation of content for VPS to streamline case development and increase realism for our learners. GenAI saves resources of time and expense by streamlining case creation, including creating patient images, clinical reports, and assessment questions. Clinical content experts can now concentrate on defining the case focus and on final-stage review, improving efficiency. It simplifies the development of effective scoring rubrics and meaningful formative feedback, enhancing learner engagement and clinical reasoning. By reducing the time needed to create VPS content, GenAI can allow educators to focus more on educational objectives and feedback to programs and learners. While GenAI is new and has limitations, these are likely to be addressed in the near future. As GenAI evolves, it will continue to transform VPS through improved realism, streamlined case creation, and more informative feedback, further supporting its role in medical education.