The emergence of digitalization and artificial intelligence has had a profound impact on society, especially in the field of medicine. Digital health is now a reality, with an increasing number of people using chatbots for prognostic or diagnostic purposes, therapeutic planning, and monitoring, as well as for nutritional and mental health support. Initially designed for various purposes, chatbots have demonstrated significant advantages in the medical field, as indicated by multiple sources. However, there are conflicting views in the current literature, with some sources highlighting their drawbacks and limitations, particularly in their use in oncology. This state-of-the-art review article seeks to present both the benefits and the drawbacks of chatbots in the context of medicine and cancer, while also addressing the challenges in their implementation, offering expert insights on the subject.

The rapid integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into healthcare has reshaped medical education and clinical practice. While technological innovation is vital, soft skills are essential for preserving trust, ethical accountability, and humanistic care. This study explores the evolving role of soft skills in medical education in the AI era by examining definitional challenges, pedagogical strategies, and the integration of AI-related literacy. A narrative review methodology synthesized evidence across seven thematic domains, focusing on curricular integration, pedagogical strategies, and assessment approaches in medical education within AI-enabled learning environments. The findings demonstrated that soft skills improve patient adherence, satisfaction, safety, and trust; strengthen physicians’ professional identity, collaboration, and resilience; and enhance system-level outcomes, such as resilience, safety, and public trust. Experiential, reflective, and competency-based pedagogies remain the most effective instructional strategies, while AI-supported tools, including virtual patients, adaptive simulations, large language models (LLMs), and Retrieval-Augmented Generation systems (RAG), offer complementary benefits by enhancing doctor-patient communication, providing real-time personalized feedback, and strengthening clinical reasoning. Soft skills function as an interconnected and synergistic ecosystem that is reinforced by cognitive, affective, humanistic, and ethical mechanisms. Integrating these competencies with AI literacy promotes theoretical clarity, supports programmatic assessment, and fosters responsible innovation, ensuring that technological advancement enhances rather than diminishes the humanistic foundations of medicine.

Obesity in elderly individuals is associated with increased levels of inflammatory biomarkers, indicating a state of chronic low-grade inflammation, which has been recently termed as adipaging. Several studies have demonstrated this relationship: overweight and obese middle-aged and elderly individuals show elevated levels of inflammatory markers like CXCL-16, IL-6, and adipokines compared to normal weight counterparts. These markers positively correlate with anthropometric parameters indicating increased cardiovascular risk. C-reactive protein (CRP) and fibrinogen levels increase progressively with higher obesity classes in the general population, including the elderly. For instance, CRP levels nearly double with each increase in weight class compared to normal weight individuals. Additionally, the presence of obesity-related comorbidities like hypertension or diabetes further elevates these inflammatory markers. In conclusion, obesity in the elderly is characterized by elevated levels of various inflammatory biomarkers, reflecting a state of chronic low-grade inflammation. This inflammatory state may contribute to the development of obesity-related comorbidities. The clarification of the complementary or independent role of these biomarkers in aging and obesity could lead to targeted therapeutic interventions in this vulnerable population group.

Introduction: Throughout the history, infectious diseases have been the most serious cause of morbidity and mortality of the population worldwide, as over the years there have been–and with the development of human activities–many significant outbreaks of infectious diseases. The threats they pose, including their resistance to antibiotics, make the review and development of public health policies a major issue. Aim: The main purpose of this article is to present most recent policies and strategies on infectious diseases prevention via a literature review and highlight the necessity of developing a holistic approach to the formulation of infectious diseases prevention policies. Moreover, through the most recent literature on this topic it is observed that there is a need to draw up innovative policies, to defend public health and enforce the one health. Methodology: For this literature review, a research in PubMed database and official organization was conducted and thus a total number (n=28) of articles and handbooks was collected. From PubMed database n1=15 articles were extracted while from websites of official organizations n2=13 was extracted. The final number of references that have been used for this paper was n=33 and were managed by using ZOTERO software. Conclusion: It is clearly observed that collective work for prevent, and control infectious diseases is mandatory. Also, there is a need for strengthen the already existed public health systems, in order to be well-prepared. A major public health tool is communication, it is very important to communicate strategies and policies to individuals in a proper and comprehensive way.

As artificial intelligence transforms clinical practice, medical education needs to incorporate soft skills to ensure patient safety, support transparent decision-making, and uphold ethical accountability. This narrative review synthesizes evidence from MEDLINE, Scopus, Google Scholar, and grey literature, organizing the findings into seven thematic areas that cover curriculum integration and teaching methods. The results indicate that soft skills enhance patient adherence, satisfaction, safety, trust, and shared decision-making. They also strengthen physicians' professional identity, confidence, collaboration, ethics, and resilience while reducing burnout. Additionally, soft skills enhance system-level outcomes, including collaboration, resilience, safety, and public trust. Experiential, reflective, and competency-based pedagogies demonstrate the strongest impact, while AI-enhanced tools provide complementary value. Despite definitional ambiguity, fragmented curricular adoption, and limited longitudinal implementation, research highlights that key competencies—communication, emotional intelligence and empathy, pro-fessionalism, teamwork and collaboration, and critical thinking with reflective practice—operate as an interconnected and synergetic system. Reconceptualizing soft skills as an interconnected system, reinforced by cognitive, affective, humanistic, behavioral, and sociocultural mechanisms, advances theoretical clarity, supports programmatic assessment, and enables the integration of AI-related literacies, including data governance, algorithmic transparency, bias mitigation, and digital professionalism. Ultimately, excellence in medicine relies on harmonizing biomedical expertise and AI capabilities with humanistic and cognitive competencies to ensure that technological innovation strengthens, rather than undermines, the ethical and humanistic foundations of medical practice.

Background: Effective communication between doctors and patients is crucial, especially when delivering bad news that can impact a person's present and future expectations. However, acquiring optimal skills in breaking bad news requires the incorporation of multiple professional competencies that are acquired gradually through years of training. The purpose of this study was to conduct a systematic review of existing literature on medical education programs and interventions aiming to improve communication skills and to critically evaluate the effectiveness of such training. Patients and Methods: We conducted a systematic review following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, searching PubMed and Scopus databases in February 2023, using the key words “medical education,” “breaking bad news,” and “end of life communication.” Results: Our search yielded 21 relevant studies, with 12 randomized studies indicating improvements in trainees found in PubMed, while four Scopus studies referred to workshops and seminars that increased participants’ confidence in various communication areas. Furthermore, eight studies referred to training courses on communication techniques that helped medical students and health professionals develop confidence in breaking bad news skills. One study utilized interactive theater and role play with professional actors to teach breaking bad news to medical students, which can be a potentially powerful tool for teaching breaking bad news during medical education. One study showed that the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has disrupted health education due to social distancing. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that training physicians at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels in communication skills for breaking bad news can be beneficial for both physicians and patients. However, limitations exist in reaching definitive conclusions. As digital learning has emerged in health-care education during the post-COVID-19 period, digital solutions have also been examined for training in the communication of bad news.