Artificial Intelligence in Medical Education: A Narrative Review on Implementation, Evaluation, and Methodological Challenges

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming medical education by enabling adaptive tutoring, interactive simulation, diagnostic enhancement, and competency-based assessment. This narrative review explores how AI has influenced learning processes in undergraduate and postgraduate medical training, focusing on methodological rigor, educational impact, and implementation challenges. The literature reveals promising results: large language models can generate didactic content and foster academic writing; AI-driven simulations enhance decision-making, procedural skills, and interprofessional communication; and deep learning systems improve diagnostic accuracy in visually intensive tasks such as radiology and histology. Despite promising findings, the existing literature is methodologically heterogeneous. A minority of studies use controlled designs, while the majority focus on short-term effects or are confined to small, simulated cohorts. Critical limitations include algorithmic opacity, generalizability concerns, ethical risks (e.g., GDPR compliance, data bias), and infrastructural barriers, especially in low-resource contexts. Additionally, the unregulated use of AI may undermine critical thinking, foster cognitive outsourcing, and compromise pedagogical depth if not properly supervised. In conclusion, AI holds substantial potential to enhance medical education, but its integration requires methodological robustness, human oversight, and ethical safeguards. Future research should prioritize multicenter validation, longitudinal evaluation, and AI literacy for learners and educators to ensure responsible and sustainable adoption.