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Op-comic: AI in healthcare promises to benefit doctors and patients

Op-comic: AI in healthcare promises to benefit doctors and patients

Our hospital invited guinea pigs to test note-taking AI. He was interested but skeptical. Then I saw enthusiastic comments.

So I took the plunge. After 15 years, it was difficult to stop having to write while she talked to patients.

Despite my reluctance, the AI program we tested surprised me. It generated an accurate and coherent summary of the conversations.

As with any new technology, there were setbacks. I had to awkwardly speak the findings out loud and the content still needed modifications.

But once I trusted the program enough, the screen caught my attention much less and moved away from the center of the room.

As a palliative care doctor, my biggest complaint was that the AI sometimes ignored my patients' hopes, dreams, and fears.

Technology will improve and we will face new challenges as more places adopt AI. But this guinea pig is feeling optimistic.

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Nathan Gray is an assistant professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and an artist who draws comics on medical topics. @NathanAGray

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