As a step towards a developed healthcare in India, the National Board of Examination in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) has introduced a six-month online course
for doctors to promote Artificial Intelligence understanding in healthcare. The new course will help doctors acquire AI skills required for enhanced diagnostics and personalised treatment. Although AI is already part of medical practices via radiology software, pathology algorithms, clinical risk scores, journal summaries, and hospital dashboards, many doctors are exposed to it without training, standards, or clarity on their responsibilities. To overcome this, NBEMS, in collaboration with global experts, decided to launch a 20-hour structured AI course on a huge scale. Candidates can submit their applications for 'Artificial Intelligence in Medical Education – Viksit Arogya Bharat' from today, December 31, onwards. The course will comprise around 20 interactive sessions/lectures. Participants will receive a certificate upon course completion. When asked about the objective to launch this course, Abhijat Sheth, President and Chairperson of NBEMS, told ANI, "The purpose is simple: to help doctors understand, judge, and safely use AI—without turning them into programmers or replacing clinical thinking." Explaining its benefits for doctors and teachers, he added, "By training faculty and PG doctors, AI becomes part of clinical discussion, not an external add-on. Teaching becomes future-ready, evidence-based, and relevant. Faculty can guide students on when to trust AI and when not to. Institutions build internal expertise, not external dependence. This ensures AI knowledge multiplies organically within the system." Steered by NBEMS, the initiative to blend AI into medical training is being undertaken with a clear, phased vision, starting with postgraduate faculty and students, expanding to undergraduate (MBBS) education, and culminating in a long-term, secure local AI infrastructure for healthcare. Phase 1 involves training of PG students and teaching staff. Early training of faculty will pave the way for uniform comprehension across departments. During the training, the focus will be laid on clinical reasoning, patient safety, ethical and legal accountability, and research integrity. It is simply because the goal is to assist doctors to understand, judge, and safely use Artificial Intelligence. "Once faculty and PG programs are established, the natural next step is to introduce AI literacy into regular MBBS education. Align it with existing subjects like statistics, community medicine, and research methodology," Sheth said to ANI. "For MBBS students, the goal is awareness, not complexity; clinical thinking, not coding; ethics and judgment from the beginning. This prepares young doctors early, ensuring AI understanding grows alongside clinical maturity," he added. Phase 3 involves a future-focused vision for locally hosted large language models (LLMs) in medical institutions. Instead of an immediate command, it is a long-term strategic objective to be pursued after adequate AI literacy among doctors.
