Background Emerging artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have diverse applications in medicine. As AI tools advance towards clinical implementation, skills in how to use and interpret AI in a healthcare setting could become integral for physicians. This study examines undergraduate medical students’ perceptions of AI, educational opportunities about of AI in medicine, and the desired medium for AI curriculum delivery. Methods A 32 question survey for undergraduate medical students was distributed from May–October 2021 to students to all 17 Canadian medical schools. The survey assessed the currently available learning opportunities about AI, the perceived need for learning opportunities about AI, and barriers to educating about AI in medicine. Interviews were conducted with participants to provide narrative context to survey responses. Likert scale survey questions were scored from 1 (disagree) to 5 (agree). Interview transcripts were analyzed using qualitative thematic analysis. Results We received 486 responses from 17 of 17 medical schools (roughly 5% of Canadian undergraduate medical students). The mean age of respondents was 25.34, with 45% being in their first year of medical school, 27% in their 2nd year, 15% in their 3rd year, and 10% in their 4th year. Respondents agreed that AI applications in medicine would become common in the future (94% agree) and would improve medicine (84% agree Further, respondents agreed that they would need to use and understand AI during their medical careers (73% agree; 68% agree), and that AI should be formally taught in medical education (67% agree). In contrast, a significant number of participants indicated that they did not have any formal educational opportunities about AI (85% disagree) and that AI-related learning opportunities were inadequate (74% disagree). Interviews with 18 students were conducted. Emerging themes from the interviews were a lack of formal education opportunities and non-AI content taking priority in the curriculum. Conclusion A lack of educational opportunities about AI in medicine were identified across Canada in the participating students. As AI tools are currently progressing towards clinical implementation and there is currently a lack of educational opportunities about AI in medicine, AI should be considered for inclusion in formal medical curriculum.

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Objective To examine the virtual family conference as an educational, preparatory, and transition planning intervention in stroke rehabilitation. Design Observational–cross-sectional study. Setting Inpatient stroke rehabilitation. Subjects Eighty-seven carers, participating in 48 conferences, were evaluated. Interventions The virtual family conference, involving the patient, carer(s), and interdisciplinary rehabilitation team, completed prior to community transition. The conference protocol and framework, consisting of nine primary themes and additional sub-themes, are outlined. Teleconferencing was the utilized virtual modality. Main measures Carers were assessed via questionnaires regarding pre- and post-conference rated: (1) stroke-related knowledge, (2) satisfaction with information provision, and (3) confidence, preparedness, and stress associated with community transition; by use of the Stroke Knowledge and Community Transition Preparedness Questionnaire, Mant et al. Information Satisfaction Questionnaire, and Kingston Caregiver Stress Scale. Results Significant improvement in post-conference carer-rating was noted for knowledge, pertaining to stroke nature/impairments, stroke management/prevention, functional status, and community services. Significant gains were demonstrated in post-conference satisfaction with information provided regarding stroke and discharge planning, across all assessed topics. There was also a significant increase in carer-reported confidence and preparedness for the community transition as well as a significant reduction in self-perceived stress for elements of the caregiving role. Organization of community follow-up care was consistently enabled within the proposed framework. Conclusions The virtual family conference intervention demonstrated efficacy in facilitating carer education and preparation, along with discharge planning prior to community transition from stroke rehabilitation. Thus, illustrating potential benefits of family conferences and feasibility of their virtual application in stroke rehabilitative care.

Readers of medical literature are typically highly educated experts, but even here, increases in the non-germane work of reading may impact learning. Prior work on revising text for readability improved experts' comprehension 3 . Moderating readability makes research more accessible.Our results and previous reports indicate variability in readability across urological subspecialties. We identified higher readability in oncology papers. Contrastingly, urologic oncology patient education materials have demonstrated poor readability. 5 Replacing medical with lay terminology lowered reading levels, suggesting utility in considering the audience when writing research papers. Further, readability has a clinical impact. Following prostatectomy, patients given a more readable hospital discharge summary were less likely to contact their provider or visit the emergency department within 30 days of admission. 4 We offer the following recommendations to increase urological literature readability. First, to revise drafts to target Flesch Reading Ease Scores above 30 when writing manuscripts. Second, for editorial boards to consider readability in the editorial process. Inclusion of navigational aids using colour, font size, and graphics to simplify complex messages are design choices that may further improve reading. Attention to non-expert readers from patient, advocacy or commercial areas is increasingly important. For example, European Urology requires a succinct summary of the clinical message, in lay terms, to be provided with each submission. To date, no investigation has evaluated the effect of these interventions on patient engagement with scientific literature.Our study indicates difficult readability across the urological literature; however, our data are limited to the journals and issues analyzed. Further studies on the breadth of urological publications will be informative. Additionally, no investigation has surveyed which resources urology patients use to learn about their own care. This offers a future direction for investigation to optimize patient-targeted care resources. Finally, readability's impact on citation counts, social media footprints, or journalism uptake has yet to be investigated. Additionally, it is not clear at which point precision is sacrificed in the quest for maximally improving readability scores.Readability affects information extraction no matter the level of education. More readable papers afford medical research the usefulness the work intends, and should be a goal for authors and journals.