Prompt Engineering in Clinical Practice: Tutorial for Clinicians

Abstract

Large language models (LLMs), such as OpenAI's GPT series and Google's PaLM, are transforming health care by improving clinical decision-making, enhancing patient communication, and simplifying administrative tasks. However, their performance relies heavily on prompt design, as small changes in wording or structure can greatly impact output quality. This presents challenges for clinicians who are not experts in natural language processing (NLP). This tutorial combines prompt engineering techniques tailored for clinical use, covering methods like zero-shot prompting, one-shot prompting, few-shot prompting, chain-of-thought prompting, self-consistency prompting, generated knowledge prompting, and meta-prompting. We provide actionable guidance on defining objectives, applying core principles, iterative prompt refinement, and integration into interoperable electronic health record (EHR) systems. This framework helps clinicians leverage LLMs to improve decision-making, streamline documentation, and enhance patient communication while maintaining ethical standards and ensuring patient safety.

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