Evaluating Artificial Intelligence Competency Needs and Priorities Among Medical College Professionals: A Cross-Sectional Analysis
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25751/rspa.46778Keywords:
Artificial Intelligence, Attitude of Health Personnel, Health Knowledge, Attitudes, PracticeAbstract
Introduction: Artificial intelligence (AI)-based tools are rapidly entering clinical workflows. Understanding clinicians’ perceptions, the areas in which they expect AI to be beneficial, desired competency levels, and ethical concerns is essential for planning training initiatives and ensuring safe implementation.
Methods: A cross-sectional, anonymized online survey administered through Google Forms was distributed to healthcare workers at a medical college. Data were collected between 16 and 23 January 2026. The questionnaire explored perceived benefits of AI, current clinical challenges that AI could address, workflow areas that AI could optimize, reasons why clinicians should understand AI, key ethical concerns, desired competency levels, and a measurable outcome that AI training could improve.
Results: Ninety-nine respondents from a wide range of specialties participated: Anesthesiology, General Surgery, General Medicine, Pediatrics, Radiology, Pulmonology. The mean clinical experience was 10.6 years. The most frequently selected potential benefits were earlier disease detection (74/99, 74.7%) and improved diagnostic accuracy (72/99, 72.7%). The workflow areas most commonly identified for AI implementation were optimization of clinical documentation and notes (85/99, 85.9%) and imaging interpretation (65/99, 65.7%). Desired AI competency levels were practical use/safe application of AI tools (46/99, 46.5%), advanced competency (designing and evaluating AI models) (40/99, 40.4%), and basic literacy (13/99, 13.1%). The leading ethical concerns were clinician accountability/liability (41/99, 41.4%), patient safety (31/99, 31.3%), transparency (22/99, 22.2%), bias (16/99, 16.2%), and data confidentiality (15/99, 15.2%).
Conclusion: Clinicians across career stages expect AI to improve early disease detection and diagnostic accuracy and express a strong interest in AI training focused on the safe and accountable use of these technologies.
Downloads
References
1. Al Hadithy ZA, Al Lawati A, Al-Zadjali R, Al Sinawi H. knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions of artificial intelligence in healthcare among medical students at Sultan Qaboos University. Cureus. 2023;15:e44887. doi: 10.7759/cureus.44887.
2. Rony K.K, Akter K, Nesa L, Islam M T, Johra F.T, Akter F, et al. Healthcare workers’ knowledge and attitudes regarding artificial intelligence adoption in healthcare: A cross-sectional study. Heliyon. 2024;10:e40775. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e40775.
3. Lauritzen AD, Rodríguez-Ruiz A, von Euler-Chelpin MC, Lynge E, Vejborg I, Nielsen M, et al. An Artificial Intelligence-based Mammography Screening Protocol for Breast Cancer: Outcome and Radiologist Workload. Radiology. 2022;304:41-9. doi: 10.1148/radiol.210948.
4. York T, Jenney H and Jones G. Clinician and computer: a study on patient perceptions of artificial intelligence in skeletal radiography. BMJ Health Care Inform. 2020;27:e100233.25
5. Patel S. Learning Outcomes of Classroom Research. New Delhi: L’ Ordine Nuovo Publication; 2021.
6. King BF Jr. Artificial intelligence and radiology: what will the future hold? J Am Coll Radiol. 2018;15:501-3. doi: 10.1016/j.jacr.2017.11.017.
7. Topol EJ. High-performance medicine: the convergence of human and artificial intelligence. Nat Med. 2019;25:44–56. doi: 10.1038/s41591-018-0300-7.
8. Bajwa J, Munir U, Nori A, Williams B. Artificial intelligence in healthcare: transforming the practice of medicine. Future Healthcare J. 2021;8:e188-e194.
9. Yu KH, Kohane IS. Framing the challenges of artificial intelligence in medicine. BMJ Qual Saf. 2019;28:238-241. doi:10.1136/bmjqs-2018-008551
10. Baxi V, Edwards R, Montalto M, Saha S. Digital pathology and artificial intelligence in translational medicine and clinical practice. Mod Pathol. 2022;35:23-32. doi:10.1038/s41379-021-00919-2.
11. Fritsch SJ, Blankenheim A, Wahl A, et al. Attitudes and perception of artificial intelligence in healthcare: A cross-sectional survey among patients. Digital Health. 2022; 8:205520762211167
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Nazia Nazir, Shivi Mishra, Rohit Singh

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Articles are freely available to be read, downloaded and shared from the time of publication.
The RSPA reserves the right to commercialize the article as an integral part of the journal (in the preparation of reprints, for example). The author should accompany the submission letter with a declaration of copyright transfer for commercial purposes.
Articles are published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (CC BY-NC).
After publication in RSPA, authors are allowed to make their articles available in repositories of their home institutions, as long as they always mention where they were published.