Since he was a child growing up in East Texas, Aaron Fanous has seen firsthand the impact the medical field has on people’s lives through his father, who has been a practicing doctor for the last 30 years.
Fanous is now looking to contribute to the medical field, and he will be in a unique position as he does so.
Fanous is one of the only doctors in the nation now to hold a dual degree in medicine and artificial intelligence. One is a Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) from The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and the other is a Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence (M.S.A.I.) from UTSA.
He will be uniquely positioned to lead in the practical use of artificial intelligence to improve diagnostic and treatment outcomes.
AI’s presence can be found in a variety of areas of the medical field including customized patient treatment plans, robotic surgeries and drug dosage.
The World Economic Forum predicts that AI could enhance the patient experience by reducing wait times and improving efficiency in hospital health systems and by aggregating information from multiple sources to predict patient care. AI is also improving administrative online scheduling and appointment check-ins, reminder calls for follow-ups and digitized medical records.
To meet those growing demands, UTSA and UT Health San Antonio launched a five-year program, which is the first of its kind in the U.S., that allows students to gain a medical education while going through a data analytics, computer science or intelligent and autonomous system track in the UTSA M.S. in Artificial Intelligence a multidisciplinary degree program.
“Our goal is to prepare our students for the next generation of health care advances by providing comprehensive training in applied artificial intelligence,” says Ronald Rodriguez, M.D., Ph.D., director of the M.D./M.S. in AI program and professor of medical education at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.
“Through a combined curriculum of medicine and AI, our graduates will be armed with innovative training as they become future leaders in research, education, academia, industry and health care administration. They will be shaping the future of health care for all.”
WATCH NOW: Aaron Fanous is one of the first doctors in the nation to use AI to improve health care.
When the opportunity to apply for the pilot program was introduced to medical students in 2021 by UT Health SA, Fanous, along with Eri Osta ‘24, jumped at the opportunity to apply.
“I believe the future of health care will require a physician to navigate the technical and clinical sides of medicine,” Fanous says. “While in the program, the experience opened my mind to the many possibilities of bridging the two fields. I look forward to using my dual degree, so that I can contribute to finding solutions to tomorrow’s medical challenges.”
Fanous was driven by his interest in integrating technology and medicine. Recognizing the slower adoption of AI in health care due to patient privacy concerns, Fanous aimed to pioneer AI applications that enhance patient care and streamline administrative tasks for medical professionals.
AI can optimize many time-consuming administrative tasks, like appointment scheduling and summarizing patients’ charts so that doctors and their staff can spend more time on patient care.
Additionally, artificial intelligence can be trained to process medical data to find certain information, for example identifying abnormalities in images generated by X-rays and MRI scans.
“My mission now is to focus on problems that can be solved with AI and to help other doctors learn how AI and related technologies can benefit their practice, their patients and even their own quality of life,” Fanous says.
The program’s project-based learning approach allowed Fanous to apply what he was learning in class to solve real-world problems.
LEARN MORE: In 2025, UTSA and The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio are on a path to merge into one premier global university, combining our collective academic, research and clinical strengths to deliver immense value to our community.
FAST FACTS
- The MD/MSAI dual degree program started in 2023.
- In 2021, a pilot program was introduced to UT Health San Antonio medical students.
- The dual program has a five-year track to complete.
- During the first three years, students focus on their medical studies. Their fourth year will focus on AI and their fifth year culminates in a capstone project that leverages clinical data and mentorship from both disciplines.
WATCH NOW: The MD/MSAI program is preparing students for the next generation of health advances.
“One of the biggest highlights of the program was when I first successfully trained a skin lesion identification model,” he says. “It was exhilarating to have something you make work. Another highlight was taking the work I was doing for school and then building them for presentations and research purposes. This opened my eyes to the amount of work that goes into not only building models, but robustly preparing them for practical use.”
During his time in the program, Fanous also helped develop an AI model that produces radiology reports from images that can detect and describe what is in the image. He also explored methods to optimize the model so it uses less memory while still adhering to security standards so that more clinicians will be able to use this type of technology.
Fanous is currently at Stanford University’s Department of Biomedical Science, furthering his training and contributions to medical AI research, before he pursues a medical residency.
“Going through the M.D./M.S. in AI program was an extraordinary experience,” Fanous says. “Learning to build and develop these AI-powered systems for medical use has helped me understand what is important to both fields and will allow me to bridge the gap between technological innovation and medicine to improve lives.”
