Artificial intelligence in perioperative medicine education: A feasibility test of case-based learning

The use of artificial intelligence in medicine is rapidly expanding. Large language models, such as ChatGPT, have the potential to enhance perioperative medicine through education and clinical practice. However, concerns remain regarding the accuracy of these models, particularly the risk of hallucinations, generating factually incorrect outputs. This feasibility test explores the use of a large language model-enabled platform to assist in case-based education in perioperative clinical cases.

Five perioperative cases addressing core topics were developed and uploaded to a custom large language model platform. The large language model platform allows free-text questions to be asked to the artificial intelligence, which then uses the derived cases to provide answers. Anaesthetic trainees engaged with the artificial intelligence, asking questions to obtain information regarding history, examination, and investigations. Artificial intelligence question-and-answer pairs were then evaluated independently in duplicate for the presence of inappropriate responses, including hallucinations.

The large language model responded appropriately to nearly all questions, with no hallucinations observed. The proportion of questions that were answered appropriately was 99.3% (543/547). In the four instances of inappropriate responses, the large language model declined to provide information in the case description rather than hallucinate.

The large language model appears capable of supporting the delivery of case-based perioperative medicine content with a high degree of accuracy.