# DL3M: A Vision-to-Language Framework for Expert-Level Medical Reasoning through Deep Learning and Large Language Models

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.13742 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.13742/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Clinical and biomedical applications, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning.
- Builds on 22 of its 67 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 14 Dec 2025.

## Placed in

- LLM reasoning / [Clinical and biomedical applications](https://mlsanity.com/lr/clinical-and-biomedical-applications/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 22 of 22)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11929/) (2020)
- [Very Deep Convolutional Networks for Large-Scale Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1409.1556/) (2014)
- [Qwen3 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.09388/) (2025)
- [Densely Connected Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1608.06993/) (2016)
- [EfficientNet: Rethinking Model Scaling for Convolutional Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.11946/) (2019)
- [DeepSeek-R1: Incentivizing Reasoning Capability in LLMs via Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.12948/) (2025)
- [Rethinking the Inception Architecture for Computer Vision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.00567/) (2015)
- [MobileNetV2: Inverted Residuals and Linear Bottlenecks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.04381/) (2018)
- [Xception: Deep Learning with Depthwise Separable Convolutions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.02357/) (2016)
- [Qwen2 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.10671/) (2024)
- [Gemma 2: Improving Open Language Models at a Practical Size](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.00118/) (2024)
- [Searching for MobileNetV3](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.02244/) (2019)
- [Identity Mappings in Deep Residual Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1603.05027/) (2016)
- [Inception-v4, Inception-ResNet and the Impact of Residual Connections on Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.07261/) (2016)
- [EfficientNetV2: Smaller Models and Faster Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.00298/) (2021)
- [TELeR: A General Taxonomy of LLM Prompts for Benchmarking Complex Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.11430/) (2023)
- [A review of deep learning-based information fusion techniques for multimodal medical image classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.15022/) (2024)
- [Pitfalls of Evaluating Language Models with Open Benchmarks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.00460/) (2025)
- [Investigating Annotator Bias in Large Language Models for Hate Speech Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.11109/) (2024)
- [Zero-Shot Multi-Label Classification of Bangla Documents: Large Decoders Vs. Classic Encoders](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.02993/) (2025)
- [Investigating Hallucination in Conversations for Low Resource Languages](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.22720/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Medical image classifiers detect gastrointestinal diseases well, but they do not explain their decisions. Large language models can generate clinical text, yet they struggle with visual reasoning and often produce unstable or incorrect explanations. This leaves a gap between what a model sees and the type of reasoning a clinician expects. We introduce a framework that links image classification with structured clinical reasoning. A new hybrid model, MobileCoAtNet, is designed for endoscopic images and achieves high accuracy across eight stomach-related classes. Its outputs are then used to drive reasoning by several LLMs. To judge this reasoning, we build two expert-verified benchmarks covering causes, symptoms, treatment, lifestyle, and follow-up care. Thirty-two LLMs are evaluated against these gold standards. Strong classification improves the quality of their explanations, but none of the models reach human-level stability. Even the best LLMs change their reasoning when prompts vary. Our study shows that combining DL with LLMs can produce useful clinical narratives, but current LLMs remain unreliable for high-stakes medical decisions. The framework provides a clearer view of their limits and a path for building safer reasoning systems. The complete source code and datasets used in this study are available at https://github.com/souravbasakshuvo/DL3M.