Research
Published papers on clinicians building their own software, often with AI: studies of the tools they made, reviews by specialty, and the cautions. Each links to the paper itself.
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Studies
Clinicians who built a tool and reported on it.
VentiProtect ARDS, vibe coding lung protection: a five-minute clinician-built ventilator tool as proof-of-concept for physician prompt engineering
Rozencwajg S. Anaesthesia Critical Care & Pain Medicine, October 2026.
A physician built a bedside ventilator titration assistant for ARDS in a single session of a few minutes, as a test of prompting as a clinical skill.
AI-assisted software development for brachytherapy seed inventory management
Wang T, Beaudry J and 3 others. Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics, September 2026.
A clinical physicist with no web development experience used Claude Code to replace an obsolete MATLAB seed inventory system with a modern desktop app.
Harnessing “Vibe Coding” to Rapidly Develop Tailored Educational Apps: A Generative AI-Driven ECG Interpretation Tool in Medical Education
Al Janabi I, Bland T. AI (MDPI), June 2026.
Educators built an ECG learning app with Gemini. First-year students rated it 4.57 out of 5, but exam scores showed no clear gain against five comparison sites.
Vibe Coding to Democratize Dementia mHealth Development: Preliminary Findings
Quispe CK, Berhongaray Kenny E and 4 others. Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, June 2026.
Tests whether health professionals without programming backgrounds can build dementia apps with vibe coding tools, and what helps, what gets in the way and what can go wrong.
Breast Reconstruction Morphology Evaluation Tool: Vibe Coding Empowers Clinicians as Creators
Otsuki Y, Nuri T. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Global Open, May 2026.
Plastic surgeons built a breast symmetry analyzer that standardizes 3D shape measurement after reconstruction, without specialized commercial software.
Vibe Coding in nephrology education: clinician-led, AI-assisted development of open-source interactive learning tools
Pesce F, Cheungpasitporn W. Renal Failure, November 2025.
Physicians built four open-source nephrology teaching apps with AI by breaking clinical algorithms into steps, generating code from plain-language prompts and refining the interface.
Reviews and frameworks
What it means for a specialty, and how to judge what gets built.
Is Vibe Coding a ‘Fire of Prometheus’ for Non-Developer Clinicians, Especially Clinical Radiologists?
Hwang SI, Lim H and 5 others. Korean Journal of Radiology, October 2026.
Whether vibe coding is a turning point for radiologists without programming training, with cautions on lost expertise, data security, missing peer review and tool sprawl.
Vibe coding for ophthalmologists
Antaki F, Bellanda V and 2 others. Current Opinion in Ophthalmology, September 2026.
Where vibe coding adds value for ophthalmologists building clinical, research and teaching tools, and how to use it responsibly.
The VIBE-HI framework: a conceptual model for evaluating vibe coding appropriateness, quality, and safety in health informatics
Alqheedan A, Alzughaibi S. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence, July 2026.
Proposes a framework for deciding when vibe coding is appropriate in healthcare and how to check the quality and safety of what gets built.
Vibe Coding in Neurosurgery: Bridging the Gap Between Clinical Needs and Digital Innovation. A Narrative Review and Practical Perspective
Hamurcu MY. Surgical Innovation, July 2026.
A review of vibe coding in neurosurgery, drawing on tools the author built in a tertiary neurosurgery department.
Perspectives and cautions
Commentary, editorials and warnings.
Vibe coding and the illusion of competence: why laboratory medicine specialists shouldn’t trust their AI-generated code for clinical deployment
De Bruyne S, Rommes S and 3 others. Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, September 2026.
Warns that specialists without software training can miss critical flaws in AI-written code, and argues against clinical use without proper validation.
Vibe coding in nursing education: From user to creator
Rahman R. Nurse Education Today, July 2026.
Argues that vibe coding moves nurses from using digital tools to making them, and asks what that means for nursing education.
Vibe coding a silent crisis: How conversational artificial intelligence built 3 health advocacy platforms in under a week
Armstrong DG, Hicks CW. Surgery, June 2026.
Two surgeons describe building three health advocacy platforms with conversational AI in under a week.
Vibe Coding in Radiology: Claude Code and ChatGPT Codex Leading to the Rise of the Radiologist-Developer
Bera K, Bittencourt LK and 2 others. Journal of the American College of Radiology, April 2026.
On coding agents such as Claude Code and Codex turning radiologists into developers of their own tools.