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Delving into New Frontiers: assessing ChatGPT’s proficiency in revealing uncharted dimensions of general surgery and pinpointing innovations for future advancements

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Abstract

Purpose

The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) has significantly influenced various medical domains, including general surgery. This research aims to assess ChatGPT, an AI language model, in its ability to shed light on the historical facets of general surgery and pinpoint opportunities for innovation.

Methods

A series of 7 pertinent questions on field of general surgery was posed to ChatGPT. The AI-generated responses were meticulously examined for their relevance, accuracy, and novelty. Additionally, the study explored the AI’s ability to recognize knowledge gaps and propose inventive solutions. Expert general surgeons and general surgical residents possessing comprehensive research experience assessed ChatGPT’s answers by comparing them to established guidelines and existing literature.

Results

ChatGPT presented information that was relevant and accurate, albeit superficial. However, it exhibited convergent thinking and was unable to produce truly groundbreaking ideas to transform general surgery. Instead, it pointed to current popular trends with significant potential for further development. It failed to provide references when prompted and even created references that could not be verified in exhibiting databases.

Conclusion

While ChatGPT demonstrated a comprehensive understanding of existing general surgical knowledge and the capacity to generate relevant, evidence-based material, it displayed limitations in producing truly groundbreaking concepts or discoveries beyond current knowledge. These results highlight the necessity of enhancing AI-driven models to facilitate the emergence of new insights and promote synergistic, human-AI partnerships for expediting advancements within the general surgery domain.

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Fig. 1

Data Availability

All available data is found in the Supplementary file 1 attached to this manuscript.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Surgery, Peninsula Health, Melbourne, VIC, 3199, Australia

    Bryan Lim & Ishith Seth

  2. Central Clinical School at Monash University, The Alfred Centre, 99 Commercial Rd, Melbourne, VIC, 3004, Australia

    Bryan Lim & Ishith Seth

  3. Department of Surgery, Bendigo Hospital, Victoria, 3550, Australia

    Ishith Seth, Dilshad Dooreemeah & Chun Hin Angus Lee

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  1. Bryan Lim
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  2. Ishith Seth
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  3. Dilshad Dooreemeah
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  4. Chun Hin Angus Lee
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Contributions

IS and BL — methodology, data acquisition, data analysis, writing manuscript draft. DD and AL — conceptualization, supervision, validation, data analysis, and editing manuscript. All authors have reviewed and approve the final manuscript. Study conception and design: All authors. Acquisition of data: IS and BL. Analysis and interpretation of data: All authors. Drafting of manuscript: IS and BL. Critical revision of manuscript: DD and AL.

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Correspondence to Bryan Lim.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Bryan Lim and Ishith Seth have contributed equally as first authors.

Supplementary Information

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Supplementary file1 (PDF 4828 KB)

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Lim, B., Seth, I., Dooreemeah, D. et al. Delving into New Frontiers: assessing ChatGPT’s proficiency in revealing uncharted dimensions of general surgery and pinpointing innovations for future advancements. Langenbecks Arch Surg 408, 446 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00423-023-03173-z

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