Assessing Physicians’ Readiness for Medical Artificial Intelligence

ÖzObjective: This study aims to assess the level of readiness among physicians at University of Health Sciences Türkiye, İzmir City Hospital for the adoption of medical artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.Methods: Participants' readiness levels were assessed with the medical artificial-intelligence readiness scale devised by Karaca et al.University of Health Sciences Türkiye, İzmir City Hospital employs 1.867 physicians.Using Baş's (2006) sample-size formula with a ±0.05 margin of error and a 95% confidence level, the minimum required sample was calculated as 319, and 320 physicians ultimately completed the questionnaire.The 22-item scale was subjected to exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis (EFA).The initial solution explained 85.432% of the total variance, with excellent sampling adequacy (Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin=0.964)and a highly significant Bartlett's test of sphericity (χ²=9.376.445,p<0.001).Inspection of the pattern matrix revealed substantial crossloadings on three items; these items were removed, and the EFA was rerun on the refined item set.Results: Statistical analyses showed no significant variation in physicians' medical-AI readiness (MAIR) across age, sex, or marital status, either for the composite score or for any of the sub-dimensions (p>0.05).Years in practice influenced only the third factor, Foresight, with a significant difference emerging there (p<0.05) but not on the remaining dimensions.Departmental affiliation, by contrast, proved important: except for the ethics sub-scale, all dimensions -and the overall MAIR score-differed significantly among departments (p<0.05).The grand-mean MAIR score was 3.11 on a five-point scale.Thus, physicians' readiness levels lie slightly above the midpoint, reflecting a generally positive yet essentially ambivalent attitude toward medical AI.The same "marginally above neutral" pattern applies to each individual sub-dimension. Conclusion:The analysis reveals that physicians adopt a moderately positive stance toward AI, yet they exhibit a pronounced shortfall in the technical knowledge and practical competence required for its effective implementation.