Artificial Intelligence Meets Holistic Review: Promises and Pitfalls of Automating the Medical Education Admissions Process

Abstract

Holistic review has been widely adopted in medical education as a means of promoting equity in the application process and diversity in the medical workforce. Artificial intelligence (AI) is a rapidly emerging technology already having an impact on the medical school and residency application process as students and faculty alike increasingly turn to AI tools to automate some steps in the preparation and evaluation of application materials. While AI may have the potential to improve the holistic admissions process by increasing efficiency and adding some measure of standardization among reviewers, the authors caution that this promise does not come without certain pitfalls. AI models may introduce new sources of bias and amplify existing ones, which, when combined with a lack of transparency regarding their use in the admissions process, may perpetuate the very inequities that holistic review seeks to minimize. The authors call for the medical education community to establish clear regulations to govern the acceptable use of AI in the admissions process and for a principled adoption of AI tools in a way that is sustainable for applicants and reviewers in the future.