With the rapid development of artificial intelligence, large language models (LLMs) have shown promising capabilities in mimicking human-level language comprehension and reasoning. This has sparked significant interest in applying LLMs to enhance various aspects of healthcare, ranging from medical education to clinical decision support. However, medicine involves multifaceted data modalities and nuanced reasoning skills, presenting challenges for integrating LLMs. This paper provides a comprehensive review on the applications and implications of LLMs in medicine. It begins by examining the fundamental applications of general-purpose and specialized LLMs, demonstrating their utilities in knowledge retrieval, research support, clinical workflow automation, and diagnostic assistance. Recognizing the inherent multimodality of medicine, the review then focuses on multimodal LLMs, investigating their ability to process diverse data types like medical imaging and EHRs to augment diagnostic accuracy. To address LLMs' limitations regarding personalization and complex clinical reasoning, the paper explores the emerging development of LLM-powered autonomous agents for healthcare. Furthermore, it summarizes the evaluation methodologies for assessing LLMs' reliability and safety in medical contexts. Overall, this review offers an extensive analysis on the transformative potential of LLMs in modern medicine. It also highlights the pivotal need for continuous optimizations and ethical oversight before these models can be effectively integrated into clinical practice. Visit https://github.com/mingze-yuan/Awesome-LLM-Healthcare for an accompanying GitHub repository containing latest papers.

通过综述大型语言模型在医学领域中的应用和意义，揭示了它们在知识检索、研究支持、临床工作流自动化和诊断辅助等方面的效用，并探索了多模态语言模型以及自动化代理在医疗保健中的发展潜力。然而，为了有效地将这些模型整合到临床实践中，需要不断优化和进行伦理监管。

大型语言模型阐明人工医疗助理的进展路径：综述