BACKGROUND: Artificial intelligence holds significant potential in dermatology. OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to explore the potential and limitations of artificial intelligence applications in dermatology education by evaluating ChatGPT's performance on questions from the dermatology residency exam. METHOD: In this study, the dermatology residency exam results for ChatGPT versions 3.5 and 4.0 were compared with those of resident doctors across various seniority levels. Dermatology resident doctors were categorized into four seniority levels based on their education, and a total of 100 questions-25 multiple-choice questions for each seniority level-were included in the exam. The same questions were also administered to ChatGPT versions 3.5 and 4.0, and the scores were analyzed statistically. RESULTS: ChatGPT 3.5 performed poorly, especially when compared to senior residents. Second (p = 0.038), third (p = 0.041), and fourth-year senior resident physicians (p = 0.020) scored significantly higher than ChatGPT 3.5. ChatGPT 4.0 showed similar performance compared to first- and third-year senior resident physicians, but performed worse in comparison to second (p = 0.037) and fourth-year senior resident physicians (p = 0.029). Both versions scored lower as seniority and exam difficulty increased. ChatGPT 3.5 passed the first and second-year exams but failed the third and fourth-year exams. ChatGPT 4.0 passed the first, second, and third-year exams but failed the fourth-year exam. These findings suggest that ChatGPT was not on par with senior resident physicians, particularly on topics requiring advanced knowledge
however, version 4.0 proved to be more effective than version 3.5. CONCLUSION: In the future, as ChatGPT's language support and knowledge of medicine improve, it can be used more effectively in educational processes.