The Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence to Develop Clinical Decision Making in Health Professional Education Students; a scoping review protocol

Developing clinical decision-making skills, including critical thinking and clinical reasoning, in health professional students is integral to providing safe, high quality, and effective care. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools are being used with increasing frequency in academic settings, including among healthcare students and within health professional education (HPE) programs. However, the literature collating how generative AI is being used in HPE programs to develop clinical decision-making is limited. Hence, this scoping review will examine how generative AI is being used to develop clinical decision-making, including critical thinking and clinical reasoning, in pre-licensure students enrolled in health professional education programs. A search of MEDLINE, Embase, Emcare, CINAHL, ERIC, and AMED (Allied and Complementary Medicine) will be conducted in accordance with the JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis methodology for scoping reviews. Studies will be included if they discuss the use of generative AI to develop clinical decision-making, critical thinking and/or clinical reasoning in HPE programs. Studies will be screened for eligibility by two independent reviewers and data from the included studies will be extracted by two or more independent reviewers using a data extraction tool. Data obtained from the included studies will be organized using frequency counts and made into tabular and/or graphical presentations. These findings will be presented in summary tables and figures with narrative summaries as appropriate. The results of this review may highlight the ways in which generative AI is being used in HPE and may help facilitate a better understanding in the role generative AI can play in advancing education.