Current Situation and Prospects of Education in Medical Imaging Artificial Intelligence

As a strategic technology that leads the future and a core driving force for industrial transformation, artificial intelligence (AI) has become a key direction in scientific research and applications in various fields. This has also led to the rapid growth of professional education in AI. Since the Ministry of Education established the “Artificial Intelligence” major in 2018, 435 universities have registered to establish the “Artificial Intelligence” major by 2021. In recent years, with various forms of interdisciplinary cooperation in the medical field, many challenging problems in applying cutting-edge AI technologies in medicine have been successfully resolved, leading to the continuous deepening of AI applications. Facing the 14th Five Year Plan and even the longer term 2035 and against the background of “New Medical Education”, China’s higher medical education is actively exploring the idea of “AI + Medical Education” for training medical professionals. AI can be integrated deeply into medical education by setting up multiple professional training channels to integrate AI with various medical majors, such as adding AI courses in majors closely related to AI applications (e.g., the medical imaging major) or establishing interdisciplinary majors (e.g., intelligent medicine, intelligent imaging medicine, and intelligent medical engineering). AI technology also empowers the education process from multiple aspects, utilizing AI technology to accelerate the modernization of higher medical education methods, textbook writing, data collection, teaching quality monitoring, evaluation and feedback systems, and a series of reforms. Due to the later maturity of the AI knowledge system, medical personnel at different stages, from undergraduate and graduate students to clinical doctors, have different AI knowledge reserves. Therefore, AI education for different populations still needs to be tailored, and different methods should be adopted to carry out AI education among medical professionals.