Humanizing AI training for health professions educators

What was the educational challenge?: Health professions educators grapple with profound emotional burdens—technology-related distress, gnawing self-doubt, and a chilling fear of obsolescence—when urged to integrate generative AI (GenAI) into their teaching. Prevailing faculty development often overlooks this critical affective dimension, focusing on technical skills while leaving anxieties unaddressed. What was the solution?: A six-week course, ‘AI in Health Professions Education,’ was developed, grounded in empathetic course design and trauma-informed pedagogy, to create a supportive and safe learning environment. How was the solution implemented?: Core principles of safety, transparency, collaboration, and empowerment were woven into the course. This involved validating initial emotional responses, fostering psychological safety for experimentation, instructor transparency about AI use and their own anxieties, and offering learners a choice to restore agency. What lessons were learned that are relevant to a wider global audience?: Addressing affective readiness is paramount; technical competence in AI cannot flourish in the absence of acknowledged fear. Centering on human emotion and autonomy, using customizable and psychologically safe strategies, effectively dismantles globally shared anxieties, such as the fear of inadequacy, making AI adoption feasible and empowering individuals across diverse contexts. What are the next steps?: Future efforts will include structured research into affective learning outcomes, such as the emotional trajectory of tech confidence, and the development of a toolkit for empathetically designed AI training globally, particularly in low-resource settings.