ChatGPT applications in medical, dental, pharmacy, and public health education: A descriptive study highlighting the advantages and limitations

Abstract

Since its public release in November 2022, ChatGPT has gained a widespread attention and  received mixed responses in the academia. Promising applications of ChatGPT in university education has been suggested; however, several concerns were raised. The aim of this descriptive study was to investigate the pros and cons of ChatGPT use in medical, dental, pharmacy, and public health education. Based on expert panel discussion and review of the existing literature, specific and concise ChatGPT prompts were constructed and the responses were generated on 25 February 2023. Out data suggested that in medical education, ChatGPT benefits included the possibility of improving personalized learning, clinical reasoning and understanding of complex medical concepts. The benefits listed in the context of dental education included improved skills through step-by-step instructions and interactive content, with instant feedback on student techniques. In pharmacy education, the advantages included possible explanations of complex subjects and the deployment of interactive tools aiding to develop skills for patient counselling. In public health education, the listed benefits included providing explanations and case scenarios, besides improved skills in data analysis and literature review. The limitations listed based on ChatGPT-generated content were common across all of the investigated healthcare disciplines and included data privacy issues, risk of generating biased and inaccurate content, and the risk of deterioration of critical thinking and communication skills among healthcare students. The ChatGPT-generated content in the context of healthcare education was deemed partially helpful by the expert panel. However, several important points regarding the pros and cons of ChatGPT use in medical, dental, pharmacy and public health education were missed by ChatGPT-generated content including: the risk of plagiarism, copyright issues, the risk of academic dishonesty, and the lack of personal and emotional interactions necessary for developing proper communication skills in healthcare education. In conclusion, despite the promising prospects of ChatGPT in healthcare education, several drawbacks should be addressed with implementation of guidelines for proper use to ensure exploiting the benefits of this innovative technology.