PERSPECTIVE article
Front. Artif. Intell.
Sec. Medicine and Public Health
This article is part of the Research TopicBeyond the Hype: A Global Perspective on the Real-World Utility of AI in Healthcare Research and Service DeliveryView all 7 articles
The Augmented Physician: AI and the Future of Clinical Cognition
Provisionally accepted
- 1Research Center of the University of Montreal Hospital Centre, Montreal, Canada
- 2UConn Health, Farmington, United States
- 3Connecticut Children's Medical Center, Hartford, United States
- 4Departement of Community Health Sciences, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC, Canada, Sherbrooke, Canada
- 5UMass Chan Medical School, Worcester, United States
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Medicine stands at a cognitive tipping point as the volume of biomedical information expands faster than clinicians can realistically monitor, synthesize, and apply new evidence in routine practice. Once a marker of scientific progress, this acceleration now challenges the foundations of clinical expertise, patient safety, and medical education. This Perspective examines the widening gap between evidence generation and evidence implementation, arguing that artificial intelligence should not replace clinicians but serve as a cognitive partner. Properly designed and ethically governed systems can assist clinicians by organizing and contextualizing large bodies of information, enabling greater focus on clinical judgment, empathy, and human connection. When integrated thoughtfully, artificial intelligence has the potential to strengthen patient engagement, reduce administrative burden, and support shared human and machine cognition in care delivery. Sustaining clinical excellence in an era of accelerating information growth will depend on embracing artificial intelligence as a collaborative tool and redefining how physicians learn, think, and care. The future of medicine will remain profoundly human, precisely because it is intelligently augmented.
Keywords: artificial intelligence - AI, Clinical cognition, Clinical decision support, Medical Education, Patient-Centered Care, Physician burnout
Received: 21 Nov 2025; Accepted: 12 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Bouabida, Chaves and Anane. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Khayreddine Bouabida
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