University of Hong Kong researchers said on Wednesday that they had invented an artificial intelligence chatbot simulating patients to train medical students' diagnostic skills.

By acting as a virtual patient, the chatbot allows medical trainees to ask important questions such as the patient's family history, allowing them to solve complex medical cases and gain experience in making diagnoses.

Michael Co, a clinical assistant professor at HKU, explained that the chatbot allows teaching staff to create specialised scenarios with rare diseases and serious complications that students may not often encounter in real-life situations.

However, he said that while the chatbot is a valuable learning tool, it cannot replace the importance of human interaction in actual medical practice.

"[This AI chatbot] cannot really replace real human-to-human touch, and the human-to-human interaction. So, this is something that can never be replaced. We are designing this kind of AI chatbot, not to replace the conventional bedside teaching, but it acts as an addition to our traditional bedside teaching," Co explained.

The medical school started working on the chatbot in 2020 with the university's computer science department in response to the pandemic, which prevented students from receiving face-to-face clinical training due to social distancing measures. The chatbot was officially launched in August.

Co also mentioned that the University of Hong Kong and the National University of Singapore are jointly using the chatbot for teaching purposes. This collaboration has led to the inclusion of a wider range of medical cases from different regions into the diagnostic programme.