Using Generative AI to Produce Images for Nursing Education

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is a type of AI that allows for the creation of brand-new content. It uses machine learning from massive data sets to create images, video, and text. With AI on the rise in society and in health care, nurse educators need to find ethical ways to integrate these technologies into educational practices. Most discussion on the use of AI in education has centered on chat-based tools such as ChatGPT or Bing Chat, mostly due to concerns with cheating. Less attention, however, has been paid to AI image generation using tools such as Midjourney, DALL∙E 2, and Stable Diffusion. These AI-based image generators provide a way for users to easily create never-before-seen images from a variety of artistic genres using simple text prompts. Although research is in its infancy early benefits of using images in healthcare education include increasing students' self-reflection, emotional intelligence, critical analysis, and dialogue on complex topics, which are all essential skills in building clinical judgment. Pragmatically, nursing educators can use these unique images to support visual learning and reflection in the classroom, laboratory, simulation, and clinical settings. Generative AI can also allow students and educators to explore mental representations and the public image of nursing in the culture. Generative AI technologies, and particularly AI-based image generation, can be a powerful teaching method to connect art, emotional processing, and reflection, which, when combined, can provide meaningful learning experiences for students.