Faculty Avatars and Realistic Simulation: Innovating Medical Education through Inquiry-Based Learning

University education for healthcare professionals is currently facing increasing clinical complexity, rapid scientific development, and growing demands for quality and patient safety. In this context, traditional lecture-based teaching approaches often prove insufficient to foster complex professional competences. This paper presents an innovative educational model integrating realistic simulation, inquiry-based learning, and generative artificial intelligence through faculty avatars. The proposed approach combines a solid pedagogical framework with an operational model already tested in academic settings, showing how avatars can extend faculty presence within digital and simulated environments, fostering active learning, clinical reasoning, and metacognitive reflection. The paper concludes by discussing implications, limitations, and future perspectives, particularly in relation to continuing medical education.