Beyond the Status Quo: Why Questioning is Our Superpower in the AI Age

The 8 AM school bell rings, shaping childhood with its rigid schedule. Yet, we rarely question if this one-size-fits-all approach genuinely optimizes for every individual, or if a different rhythm might unlock greater potential. Are we blindly following patterns, or genuinely optimizing for the individual?

This rigid adherence to "the way it's always been done" isn't unique to education. In healthcare, during my informatics implementations, I frequently encountered this very phrase when questioning clinical workflows—rarely "why" or "should we re-evaluate?" There was often palpable frustration, almost as if inefficiency was accepted, and efforts to improve felt unsupported. This unquestioning perpetuation directly fuels our current healthcare crisis: patient dissatisfaction, physician burnout, and suboptimal outcomes. The urgency of this landscape demands we constantly challenge existing processes and redesign them. Leading this vital transformation requires not merely a front-line worker, but an inquisitive, forward-thinking leader who understands the current reality, dares to explore alternative solutions, and can clearly articulate a better vision for the future.

However, the scarcity of such leaders, I believe, is a direct consequence of an education system that has inadvertently dampened our innate critical and creative thinking. I've long admired engineering's daily stand-up meetings, where colleagues collaboratively dissect design issues and seek feedback. Imagine applying this to healthcare: regular inpatient medicine stand-ups discussing operational weaknesses and tracking solutions. This isn't merely a process change; it's about reawakening our fundamental human capacity to question and innovate. Indeed, the adoption of AI technology is now stirring this 'sleeping beast' of individual human creativity, pushing us to challenge the status quo.

This 'sleeping beast' of human creativity, stirred by AI, compels us to re-examine medical education itself. Too often, our training—from medical student to residency and continuing education—still prioritizes rote memorization and standardized multiple-choice exams as the primary measure of competence. While foundational knowledge remains crucial, cultivating the critical thinkers needed for tomorrow demands a shift towards active learning: fostering discussion groups, encouraging essays, and promoting rigorous debate that forces independent thought. The question for medical education then becomes: how should we train physicians for an AI-augmented future? In my opinion, we need a hybrid physician – one with a strong basic and clinical science foundation, adept at collaborating with AI, and fundamentally a true 'scientist' in the broadest sense: someone who systematically gathers and evaluates evidence and biases, and constantly seeks to understand and share knowledge. This reawakening could begin immediately with dedicated medical writing and debate classes for physicians, making ongoing research, discussion, and critical inquiry the norm, not the exception.