WHITTIER, Calif. – October 30, 2026 -- Healthcare education must shift toward critical thinking, clinical judgment and interpersonal skills as AI spreads through care delivery, according to Tamara Rozhon, EdD, Provost of Southern California University of Health Sciences (SCU).
AI already supports imaging, clinical decisions and research
AI tools help healthcare professionals analyze medical images, support clinical decisions and advance research. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration maintains a list of AI-enabled medical devices authorized for marketing. The World Health Organization identifies AI applications across clinical care, drug development and health systems management.
Rozhon calls for emphasis on evaluating and applying information
As access to information expands, educators must focus on how students evaluate and apply it, Rozhon says. Graduates need to assess evidence, recognize potential bias and error, weigh ethical concerns, and decide whether an AI-generated finding makes sense for an individual patient.
In her words, the best healthcare requires "understanding patients," not only patient data, including their circumstances, preferences and goals.
Curricula and assessments face redesign
For educators, this means building learning experiences and assessments that require students to question and defend an answer and make decisions in the context of a real person. Clinical experiences must also strengthen listening, empathy, communication, judgment and connection. Rozhon says these abilities grow in importance as technology takes on more of the work of generating and synthesizing information.
Rozhon frames the central challenge for health sciences education as developing the human intelligence needed to use AI well, rather than keeping pace with the technology itself. Her full perspective is published under the title "As AI Gets Smarter, Healthcare Education Must Get More Human."