Emotional Intelligence Training Correlates With Medical Students' Apprehension of AI in Healthcare: A...

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare is becoming increasingly widespread. While AI has been touted to improve many aspects of the field, its potential to undermine the doctor-patient relationship has also been recognized. It is not known what future physicians believe regarding the potential effects of AI on physicians' professional relationships. It is also unknown whether formal training in emotional intelligence (EI) and resilience strategies influences medical students' opinions on the use of AI in healthcare.

To ascertain medical students' opinion on the potential impact of AI on various EI-related aspects of healthcare, such as its use in guiding doctor-patient interactions, and to determine whether formal training in emotional intelligence and resilience (EIR) is associated with their opinion on these topics.

Approximately 700 medical students were asked to voluntarily and anonymously complete a 12-item survey. All survey items were required to be answered for students' responses to be accepted and analyzed. Agreement with survey items was measured via a Likert-type scale, with 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree. Results were summarized as means and standard deviations, stratified by whether students did (EIR⁺) or did not (EIR^-) take our institution's EIR elective course. Median responses per survey item were compared across EIR^+/- groups via the Mann-Whitney U test (α < 0.05), a non-parametric test comparing two independent samples allowing for unequal group size.

A total of 50 EIR⁺ students (59%) and 35 EIR^- students (41%) replied, making the survey response rate approximately 12.14%. Compared to their counterparts, EIR⁺ students indicated statistically significantly greater disagreement with "I believe AI technology will improve the doctor-patient relationship" (3.0 (± 1.2) vs. 3.5 (± 1.0); p = 0.0327). While not statistically significant, EIR⁺ students also reported a similar magnitude (~0.5 points) of greater disagreement with "AI has a place in guiding physicians on how to better interact with their patients and colleagues" (2.9 (± 1.2) vs. 3.4 (± 1.1); p = 0.0701) and "Overall, I think adopting the use of AI in healthcare will be beneficial" (3.6 (± 1.2) vs. 4.0 (± 1.1); p = 0.0521).

The preliminary data from our single-institution, observational study suggest EIR-trained medical students may be more cautious of AI usage in healthcare due to the potential negative impact AI can have on the doctor-patient relationship. However, larger studies using validated surveys are required to confirm this conclusion.