The medical school application process is one of the most mentally demanding experiences a student can face. Years of coursework, research, volunteering, and standardized test prep converge into a single high-stakes window where everything relies on acceptance. Over the years, students have relied on advisors, mentors, and therapists to get through this process. However, now they are turning to something else entirely – artificial intelligence (AI).
A survey of 145 pre-medical students across the U.S. by national medical school admissions consulting firm Inspira Advantage shows that nearly 60% reported frequent stress and anxiety during the medical school application process, and about half said they felt they needed therapy. But the more revealing finding was where students are directing that distress. Over half said they’re comfortable sharing sensitive mental health information with an AI chatbot, and nearly 30% said they would use AI specifically to talk through emotional struggles rather than just organize a study schedule.
The UND School of Medicine and Health Sciences is the only medical school in North Dakota. When one institution carries that much responsibility for a state’s healthcare workforce, the mental health of its students is not a campus issue. It is a statewide public health concern.
UND’s SMHS provides students with two wellness advocates trained to help them define and pursue their own sense of well-being using an eight-spoked Wellness Wheel model. The Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Science houses the medical school Wellness Advocate position, dedicated to promoting student resilience and stress management. The Office of Student Affairs & Admissions provides resources, events, and confidential advising to support students’ physical and mental health. These efforts demonstrate that the school already cares about its students’ mental health. But two wellness advocates serving an entire medical school face an uphill battle. A student on a rural clinical rotation hours from campus has far easier access to ChatGPT than to either of those advocates.
UND’s distributed training model is one of the school’s greatest strengths for producing community-oriented physicians. It also creates real gaps in mental health access for students stationed far from campus resources. AI fills those gaps by default when schools lack the resources to do so.
Why? Because AI is easy and accessible. Office hours aren’t.
UND also needs to educate students about the risks of overreliance on AI, especially public large language models that are not equipped to provide specific mental health support. Understanding the dangers of hallucinatory content, privacy infringements, and the loss of personal data will help students reduce their dependence on AI, not only for emotional support but throughout their careers.
AI is not solely the enemy. It can certainly be used ethically and modestly. For example, in February 2024, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), which runs the centralized system for med school applications, said, “The use of AI tools is acceptable for brainstorming, proofreading, or editing the personal statement and other aspects of the application. However, applicants are asked to affirm that their final application submission is an accurate representation of their experience and represents their own work.”
Once students are in medical schools, faculty can introduce AI modules in pre-clinical training or elective courses on the use of AI in healthcare. However, this must also include courses on the ethical use of AI and how it can endanger patient safety.
UND offers the region’s first Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence, and its SMHS librarians developed an AI literacy presentation for the fall 2024 Medical Curriculum Advance, exploring how information literacy connects to artificial intelligence literacy in health education. The foundation for AI education already exists. But the school needs to direct some of that energy toward helping medical students recognize when a chatbot becomes a crutch for the professional support they actually need.
Nearly two-thirds of the students we surveyed said future physicians must understand AI’s limitations and risks. They already see the problem clearly. UND’s School of Medicine & Health Sciences carries a mandate as the sole institution training North Dakota’s physicians. Meeting that mandate means ensuring students all across the state’s clinical sites can access real mental health support from humans, not just a 24-hour chatbot that happens to have better availability than their wellness office.
Arush Chandna is the co-founder of Inspira Advantage, a leading medical school admissions consulting firm.