That’s the idea behind Summer of Vibes, a student-run healthcare innovation program at the Scarborough Health Network Research Institute (SHNRI), led by Dr. Joshua Landy, Physician Education Lead for Education & Innovation. Now in its second year, the program immerses students in clinical and hospital environments, where they identify real problems and build, test and validate working prototypes using emerging technologies.

The program brings together students from disciplines ranging from computer science and engineering to medicine, mathematics, health sciences and game design, bringing different perspectives to healthcare challenges.

Their work came together at Grand Demo Day on Aug. 7, where students showcased projects spanning medical education and simulation, patient care and health equity, and healthsystem innovation.

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From AI prototypes to real-world healthcare

Some of those ideas are already moving beyond the summer. ContextCare is being piloted on SHN’s internal medicine wards, where researchers are studying whether AI in healthcare can translate complex discharge information into clear, easy-to-understand instructions for patients.

Virtual Standardized Patient (VSP), an AI-powered medical education platform developed and tested through Summer of Vibes, allows learners to practise interviewing and clinical reasoning with realistic virtual patients and is now moving into formal research and educational evaluation at SHN.
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Other projects are earlier in their development, including the Performance Assessment System (PAS), a research prototype exploring whether AI-assisted analysis of real-world clinical interactions could provide useful feedback to clinicians.

“Summer of Vibes is the starting point for these projects, not the endpoint,” says Dr. Landy. “Students can build and test an idea quickly over the summer, but the projects with real promise don’t simply end when the program does.”

Promising projects can move forward into formal research, validation and funding and, where appropriate, real-world implementation at SHN.

But the learning at SHN goes both ways.

“The learning is bidirectional,” says Dr. Landy. “It's not just the students coming to learn how to apply AI for us. We get to see how the youngest students, who have been using AI their entire academic career, actually use it to learn.”

By working with students, SHN can better understand how a new generation is using emerging technologies while students gain the mentorship, research tools and real-world experience to develop their ideas.

As AI continues to shape healthcare education, students are exploring an important question: how can technology enhance learning while preserving the human skills that make healthcare meaningful?

For students like Jessica Segall, AI should be viewed as a “partner rather than a tool in students’ education.”

While AI can support learning, it cannot replace the empathy, compassion, communication and situational awareness that healthcare professionals bring to every patient interaction.

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Building the future of healthcare in Scarborough

Summer of Vibes is part of SHNRI’s Research Institute Student Experience (RISE),which brings together SHN’s student research and learning opportunities and gives emerging talent hands-on experience in healthcare research and innovation.

As SHN prepares for the launch of the Scarborough Academy of Medicine and Integrated Health (SAMIH), programs like RISE and Summer of Vibes are helping shape what medical education can look like in an AI-enabled healthcare system.

Philanthropy is helping SHN build the research and education expertise needed to make that future possible. We’re grateful to donors like Tony Pialis, whose support is advancing education and research leadership at SHN and helping create opportunities to train and inspire the next generation of healthcare leaders.

For Dr. Landy, the hope is that some of those future healthcare leaders will ultimately choose to stay in Scarborough.

“Hopefully we can get them to get into Scarborough's medical school, become doctors in Scarborough, and help treat the patients.”

Support the next generation of healthcare innovation at SHN.

If you’re interested in helping SHN nurture the next generation of healthcare leaders through programs like Summer of Vibes, please contact Arlene Boyce at aboyce@shn.ca or 416-505-3200

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