Medical students’ perceptions of professional mission in an AI-driven healthcare future: a text mining analysis of reflective essays in Japan
- VernacularTitle:Medical students’ perceptions of professional mission in an AI-driven healthcare future: a text mining analysis of reflective essays in Japan
- Author:
Nobuyasu KOMASAWA
1
;
Masanao YOKOHIRA
2
Author Information
- Keywords: medical education; artificial intelligence; career design; medical professionalism; text mining
- From:Journal of Rural Medicine 2025;20(4):294-301
- CountryJapan
- Language:English
- Abstract: Objective: As artificial intelligence (AI) technologies advance rapidly, their integration into healthcare is transforming the clinical practice landscape. This study aimed to evaluate how second-year medical students perceive their professional mission in an AI-integrated medical future, through a structured essay task, using text-mining analysis to identify emerging themes and attitudes.Methods: A total of 105 second-year medical students at Kagawa university in Japan completed an essay titled “What is your mission in the AI-driven medical world?”. Responses were analyzed using KH Coder for frequency analysis, multidimensional scaling, and co-occurrence network mapping. Participants provided verbal informed consent and student anonymity was ensured.Results: The most frequently used terms were medical, consider, think, doctor, AI, human, and patient. Three thematic clusters emerged: (1) career design, (2) AI and medicine, and (3) AI and human. Co-occurrence analysis revealed strong associations between “medical” and both “consider” and “patient”, while “patient” was linked to both “AI” and “human”, indicating thoughtful reflection on technology’s impact on patient care.Conclusion: Second-year medical students in Japan demonstrated critical engagement with the concept of mission formation in the context of AI in healthcare. Their essays reflected a balance between optimism for technological advancement and concern for preserving human-centered care. These findings highlight the importance of implementing systematic career education and future-oriented thinking that is aligned with the characteristics of Generation Z learners.
