The National Board of Examination in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) has announced a six-month online course to equip doctors in India with practical knowledge of Artificial Intelligence in Medical Education. The initiative aims to turn AI from an external add-on into an integrated part of clinical training and decision-making, beginning with postgraduate faculty and students and expanding to undergraduate curricula.
Artificial Intelligence in Medical Education
The course, launched under the banner ‘Artificial Intelligence in Medical Education – Viksit Arogya Bharat’, offers approximately 20 hours of structured learning delivered across 20 interactive sessions. Candidates may apply from 31 December. Participants who complete the programme will receive a certificate from NBEMS.
NBEMS President and Chairperson Abhijat Sheth told ANI that the objective is practical rather than technical. “The purpose is simple: to help doctors understand, judge, and safely use AI—without turning them into programmers or replacing clinical thinking,” he said. The course will therefore focus on clinical reasoning, patient safety, ethical and legal accountability, and research integrity.
AI already supports many clinical tasks, from radiology and pathology tools to clinical risk scores and hospital dashboards. However, many practitioners encounter these systems without formal training or clarity on responsibility. The NBEMS programme is designed to bridge that gap by training faculty so they can lead departmental conversations about when to rely on AI and when to apply clinical judgement.
Phase 1 of the plan prioritises postgraduate students and teaching staff. Early faculty training is intended to create uniform comprehension across specialities and to seed institutional expertise rather than dependence on external vendors. Once faculty and postgraduate programmes are established, Phase 2 will introduce AI literacy into the MBBS curriculum, aligning lessons with subjects such as statistics, community medicine, and research methodology.
Sheth emphasised that undergraduate exposure will focus on awareness and ethical judgment rather than coding or technical depth. “For MBBS students, the goal is awareness, not complexity; clinical thinking, not coding; ethics and judgment from the beginning,” he said. The intention is to prepare young doctors to engage with AI tools as they develop clinical maturity.
Phase 3 sets out a long-term vision for developing secure, locally hosted large language models within medical institutions. NBEMS presents this as a strategic objective to pursue only after a broad baseline of AI literacy exists among clinicians.
The course has been developed in collaboration with international experts and addresses practical concerns such as accountability and regulatory compliance. By embedding AI topics into routine clinical teaching and research discussions, NBEMS expects expertise to multiply organically within the healthcare system.
Medical educators and hospital administrators looking to future-proof training are likely to view the initiative favourably. A structured national approach to AI literacy could reduce misuse, clarify professional responsibilities, and enhance patient safety while enabling clinicians to use AI tools more effectively in diagnostics and personalised treatment.
Applications open from 31 December for doctors interested in the first phase. The programme represents a measured, phased attempt to introduce new technology into Indian medical education without compromising clinical standards.
Key Takeaways:
- NBEMS has launched a large-scale six-month online course titled “Artificial Intelligence in Medical Education” to build AI literacy among doctors.
- The 20-hour structured programme comprises around 20 interactive sessions and issues certificates on completion.
- Phase-wise rollout starts with postgraduate faculty and students, expands to MBBS teaching, and plans local large language model infrastructure later.
