The meteoric rise of generative AI (GAI) has the potential to transform health professions education (HPE), and interest among educators as seen at the recent IAMSE and AMEE conferences is extremely high. However, to unlock the capabilities of these rapidly evolving GAI models, users need to be able to master prompt engineering, which is the art and science of interacting with AI models to produce specific outputs. This focus session provides an introduction to GAI and prompt engineering, including the components of a well-constructed prompt; the roles of context, specificity, and clarity in prompt engineering; and common techniques including zero-shot, few-shot and chain-of-thought prompts. Participants will have the opportunity to apply these best practices in developing their own prompts for authentic HPE scenarios with hands-on coaching and guidance. The session will also address common pitfalls when using AI and how to avoid them.

Upon completing this session, participants will be able to:
1. Discuss common use case scenarios in health professions education (HPE) that can be addressed by generative artificial intelligence (GAI)
2. Apply a basic framework for developing well-constructed prompts
3. Identify and avoid common pitfalls for AI use