ChatGPT in medical writing: enhancing healthcare communication through artificial intelligence and human expertise

Abstract

This study explores the capabilities and limitations of ChatGPT, an advanced language model, in medical writing. Leveraging the GPT-4 architecture, ChatGPT has shown potential in aiding various stages of medical article creation, including planning, drafting, revising, and even submission processes. It can summarize extensive literature, suggest research questions, and assist in multi-language research, making it a versatile tool for initial research and planning. During revisions, ChatGPT’s strengths lie in improving language, ensuring consistency, and enhancing readability. Despite its abilities, ChatGPT has several limitations. ChatGPT’s training data only updates with each new version release, which could result in outdated or incomplete research. It also lacks the critical thinking, domain expertise, and ethical considerations that human researchers bring to medical writing. While ChatGPT can be a useful tool for routine tasks and initial drafts, human expertise remains critical for generating high-quality, ethical, and insightful medical research articles. Therefore, a hybrid approach that combines the computational power of ChatGPT with the intellectual and ethical rigor of human experts is recommended for optimizing medical writing processes.