New Voices RGU Student Series 2026 – Denise O’Riordan

Category: RGU Student Series 2026

In the 2026 New Voices Student Series, the CILIPS Students & New Professionals Community will be sharing the views of Robert Gordon University students from the MSc in Information and Library Studies.

With special thanks to Dr Konstantina Martzoukou, Teaching Excellence Fellow and Associate Professor, for organising these thought-provoking contributions.

Denise O’Riordan is a part-time student undertaking MSc Information and Library Studies at RGU, currently working in healthcare and is interested in the collaboration of librarians and healthcare workers.

From Prompts to Practice: GenAI Training Recommendations for Healthcare Staff

AI is becoming increasingly integrated in user-facing technology but public understanding of these technologies is often limited (Long and Magerko, 2020).

“AI literacy is a set of competencies that enable individuals to critically evaluate AI technologies, communicate and collaborate effectively with AI and use AI as a tool online, at home and in the workplace” (Long and Magerko, 2020). With the release of Open AI’s Large Language Model, ChatGPT, in 2022, came the explosion of generative AI. There is no denying the difficulty in understanding LLMs (Wang, Chan and Tamura, 2025).

AI comes to healthcare with great opportunities but with the fast pace of its growth we also have to be mindful of the risks. The World Health Organisation has highlighted the need for AI literacy as a core competency for the next generation of health care professionals. There is a risk of compromising patient safety and professional integrity without AI literacy for future healthcare professionals (Rodger et al., 2025). There is also often a polarised view of generative AI, MacLean (2023) accredits this to the air of mystery and lack of understanding around AI and how GPTs learn from data.

Some of the opportunities to be gained from AI will enhance medical services, including patient communication, clinical decision support and creating health care plans (Hobensack et al., 2024).

Sze (2025) highlights the role of health science librarians in bridging the AI literacy gap. This includes leading instructional programs and professional development initiatives. They can also offer guidance on ethical AI use and policy development. Critical evaluation of AI generated content is also very important. According to Melonis (2025), the library is the AI learning destination and a hub for gen AI.
To bridge this AI literacy gap in healthcare workers, I would like to offer advice for the design of a training resource on generative AI, focusing on a user group of nurses.

Due to the nature of a nurse’s work virtual and in-person attendees should be facilitated. If possible virtual learning platforms that can be accessed at any time would be useful (Melonis, 2025). A short session on AI basic foundations and the growing impact of AI on health care would work well as an introduction, followed then by a longer hands on workshop. Some generative AI tools to experiment with during the workshop include different Gen AI chatbots, AI powered search engines, text to image generators, literature review tools and literature mapping tools (Atwood, 2024).

The addition of engaging videos can be helpful to the learning resource. Short videos are non-traditional ways of learning that could be very effective for busy healthcare professionals (Chaudhuri and Terrones, 2025).

There should be a large emphasis placed on prompt engineering during training. It is an invaluable skill to get the most out of LLM. It minimises the opportunities for ChatGPT and other generative AI tools to make assumptions (Hall, 2024). It is common to have a conversation with ChatGPT, not just one prompt. The CLEAR (Concise, Logical, Explicit, Adaptive and Reflective) framework is a useful tool for beginners (Lo, 2023).

AI tools can play a large part in academic writing. Oermann (2025), provides guidelines for nurse authors. AI tools can now research, summarise, create, revise and edit academic writing as well as creating tables and figures. AI-generated content must be appropriately disclosed to avoid plagiarism.

It is no doubt a time of great change but I think librarians are well placed to be at the forefront to bridge the AI literacy gap for users.

There are several free tools available:

The University of Helsinki’s “Elements of AI” is an open access AI literacy course: https://course.elementsofai.com/en-ie/

AI nurses Network YouTube Channel provides a series of guest lecturers discussing different aspects of AI in healthcare: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCavb447TmIdCICmik0nC9yQ

Innovation scholars provides a series of self-directed videos that you can work through at your own pace. It is specifically designed with healthcare professionals in mind: https://innovationscholars.er.kcl.ac.uk/training/

A subject bibliography has also been compiled on the topic, accessed by clicking here.

References

Atwood, G.S. (2024) ‘Try AI Day: Introducing Library Faculty and Staff to Artificial Intelligence Tools Through Hands-On Experimentation’, Journal of Electronic Resources in Medical Libraries, 21(2), pp. 108–112. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/15424065.2024.2351590

Chaudhuri, J. and Terrones, L. (2025) ‘Reshaping Academic Library Information Literacy Programs in the Advent of ChatGPT and Other Generative AI Technologies’, Internet Reference Services Quarterly, 29(1), pp. 1–25. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/10875301.2024.2400132

Hall, B. et al. (2024) ‘An early or somewhat late ChatGPT guide for librarians’, Journal of business & finance librarianship., 29(1), pp. 58–69. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/08963568.2024.2303944

Hobensack, M. et al. (2024) ‘A rapid review on current and potential uses of large language models in nursing’, International journal of nursing studies, 154, pp. 104753. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2024.104753

Lo, L.S. (2023) ‘The CLEAR path: A framework for enhancing information literacy through prompt engineering’, The Journal of academic librarianship, 49(4), pp. 102720. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2023.102720

Losg, D. and Magerko, B. (2020) ‘What is AI Literacy? Competencies and Design Considerations’, ACM. pp. 598. Available at: DOI: 10.1145/3313831.3376727

MacLean, A. (2023) ‘‘Making Friends’ With ChatGPT: A Guide To Best Practices For AI Interactions’ Forbes Technology Council, 27th March. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbestechcouncil/2023/03/27/making-friends-with-chatgpt-a-guide-to-best-practices-for-ai-interactions/ (Accessed: 11 November 2026)

Melonis, R. (2025) ‘Placement of the Library at the Heart of GenAI: Marketing Opportunities For Us All’, RUSQ: A Journal of Reference & User Experience, 61(1), pp. 15–18. Available at: https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=c55c7127-ecf9-35f5-bc51-59c7a159434c

Oermann, M.H. et al. (2025) ‘Using Artificial Intelligence for Scholarly Writing’, AJN American Journal of Nursing, 125(11), pp. 52–55. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1097/AJN.0000000000000179

Rodger, D. et al. (2025) ‘Generative AI in healthcare education: How AI literacy gaps could compromise learning and patient safety’, Nurse Education in Practice, 87, pp. 104461. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2025.104461

Sze, H.W. (2025) ‘Empowering Medical Educators: Library Services’ Role in Advancing AI Literacy’, Journal of Hospital Librarianship, 25(1-2), pp. 94–100. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/15323269.2025.2501884

Wang, X., Chan, T.M. and Tamura, A.A. (2025) ‘A learning module for generative AI literacy in a biomedical engineering classroom’, Frontiers in Education, 10, Available at: https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2025.1551385

Copilot (2026) Healthcare Library [Digital art]. Created for Denise O’Riordan, 11 February.

Copilot (2026) Education Session [Digital art]. Created for Denise O’Riordan, 11 February.

Copilot (2026) Healthcare Workers and Librarians [Digital art]. Created for Denise O’Riordan, 11 February.