Study on the Medical Education Capability of the EyeTeacher Artificial Intelligence Platform (EyeTeacher)

With the rise of generative artificial intelligence and large language models, medical education is undergoing a significant transformation. Numerous studies have highlighted the limitations of traditional educational knowledge acquisition and the potential impact of artificial intelligence on medical education, resident training, and continuing education for clinical practitioners. However, there is a lack of real-world experiments on the effectiveness of AI-integrated education.

Artificial intelligence can provide extensive educational resources and tools that are not limited by geographical location or language, thereby lowering the barrier to accessing high-quality medical education and promoting educational equity. Nevertheless, the performance of AI models trained by different medical institutions or healthcare systems may vary.

To offer a more universal, accessible, high-quality, and interconnected educational journey. We have developed a virtual ophthalmology teacher, which developed based on foundational model and large language models. This model, named EyeTeacher provide comprehensive theoretical knowledge and clinical skills enhancement for untrained medical students. To verify the effectiveness of our EyeTeacher across different national ophthalmology education systems and languages, we plan to implement a randomized controlled trial. This trial will assess the clinical capabilities of all participants and explore the advantages and disadvantages of the system compared to traditional teaching methods.

Study Overview

• Status: Not yet recruiting
• Conditions: Medical Education
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: EyeTeacher

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Estimated): 252
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: Yueyuan Xu; Phone Number: +86 186 1065 2799; Email: xuyy17@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn

Study Locations

• Australia
  • Victoria
    • Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 3010
      • University of Melbourne
      • Contact: Kate Reid; Phone Number: +61 3 9035 7831; Email: kireid@unimelb.edu.au
• China
  • Beijing
    • Beijing, Beijing, China, 430022
      • Peking Union Medical College Hospital
      • Contact: ZhiKun Yang; Phone Number: +86 010-69156351; Email: yangzhikun@pumch.cn
• Ghana
  • Greater Accra Region
    • Accra, Greater Accra Region, Ghana, P.O. Box LG 586
      • University of Ghana
      • Contact: Kwesi Amissah-Arthur; Phone Number: +233-(0)302-213820; Email: pad@ug.edu.gh
• India
  • Tamil Nadu
    • Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, 600 006
      • Sankara Nethralaya
      • Contact: Chetan Rao; Phone Number: +91 44 4227 1500; Email: mrf@snmail.org
• Malaysia
  • Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 50603
    • University of Malaya
    • Contact: Lee-Ling Lim; Phone Number: +603-7949 2050; Email: limleeling@um.edu.my
• Singapore
  • Singapore, Singapore, 169857
    • Duke-NUS Medical School
    • Contact: Scott Compton; Phone Number: +65 6516 7666; Email: enquiries@duke-nus.edu.sg
• United Kingdom
  • London, United Kingdom, EC1V 2PD
    • Moorfields Eye Hospital
    • Contact: Mathew Rashmi; Phone Number: +44 0207 253 3411; Email: r.mathew@ucl.ac.uk

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Clinical medical students who have not taken ophthalmology courses
• Age 21-40
• Gender not restricted
• Sign the informed consent form

Exclusion Criteria:

• Refusal of the research protocol.
• Participants unwilling or unable to understand and complete the questionnaire.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Other
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Interventional group; Attend EyeTeacher lecture before taking the regular ophthalmology lecture in medical school.	Other: EyeTeacher; Participants randomized to the intervention group will receive access to the EyeTeacher system, along with their username, password, and a user manual, one week before the start of the course. They will follow instructions on the website and complete a quiz before and after each course. After completing the EyeTeacher curriculum, they will take the first examination (Examination 1) and complete a set of questionnaires. A classroom will be provided for study purposes, but no restrictions will be imposed on the study location. Following the EyeTeacher section, participants will attend the ophthalmology course in the regular training program, with support from the EyeTeacher system. They will be evaluated according to the ophthalmology posting's evaluation criteria (Examination 2).
No Intervention: Control group; Attend regular ophthalmology lectures in medical school.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Grade of ophthalmology examination	Title: Ophthalmology Theoretical Examination. The examination includes 40 multiple-choice questions and two essay questions related to ophthalmology knowledge, to be completed within one hour without the use of reference materials. The exam will be graded by experts based on a standardized answer key. The score ranges from 0 to 100, with a higher score indicating a deeper understanding of the ophthalmology knowledge. Students in both the interventional group and the control group will complete the exam within the specified time on the EyeTeacher system. The data will be collected in the system's backend.	1 day after complete lectures

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Time of studying ophthalmology	The study time spent using each teaching module in the interventional group is tracked by the EyeTeacher system website, while the study time for the control group and the out-of-system study time for the interventional group are collected through a questionnaire. Questionnaire title: Time of Study in Ophthalmology The questionnaire consists of fill-in-the-blank questions, with time measured in minutes. The content includes: class time, exercise time, discussion time, and reading reference material time. The questionnaires for both the interventional and control groups are completed on the EyeTeacher system, and the data is collected through the backend.	1 day after complete lectures
Feedback of teaching from students	Questionnaire title: Feedback of Study in Ophthalmology: The Likert scale is used for scoring. The topics include students' evaluations of course design, teacher guidance, empathy, as well as students' self-assessment and evaluation of their interest in ophthalmology. The questionnaires for both the interventional and control groups are completed on the EyeTeacher system, and the data is collected through the backend.	1 day after complete lectures

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Tsinghua University

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• He B, Kwan AC, Cho JH, Yuan N, Pollick C, Shiota T, Ebinger J, Bello NA, Wei J, Josan K, Duffy G, Jujjavarapu M, Siegel R, Cheng S, Zou JY, Ouyang D. Blinded, randomized trial of sonographer versus AI cardiac function assessment. Nature. 2023 Apr;616(7957):520-524. doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-05947-3. Epub 2023 Apr 5.
• Benitez TM, Xu Y, Boudreau JD, Kow AWC, Bello F, Van Phuoc L, Wang X, Sun X, Leung GK, Lan Y, Wang Y, Cheng D, Tham YC, Wong TY, Chung KC. Harnessing the potential of large language models in medical education: promise and pitfalls. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2024 Feb 16;31(3):776-783. doi: 10.1093/jamia/ocad252.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Estimated): January 5, 2025
• Primary Completion (Estimated): December 30, 2025
• Study Completion (Estimated): December 30, 2025

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: December 5, 2024
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: December 29, 2024
• First Posted (Actual): March 25, 2025

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): March 25, 2025
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: December 29, 2024
• Last Verified: December 1, 2024

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Medical education; Multimodality AI; Generative AI
• Other Study ID Numbers: THU01-20240100

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No