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I’m an ER doctor. Here’s how I’m already using ChatGPT to help treat patients

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Re: I’m an ER doctor. Here’s how I’m already using ChatGPT to help treat patients

#151

Post by rpastuszak »

protastus wrote: post #64
firebirdn99 wrote: post #44

This really feels farcical, and kind of like vc bros hyping up a product. Considering this was a serious issue of life and death of a patient, it was surprising how it read like a prank or like the scene from Harold and Kumar, where Kumar plays a fake doctor and saves an ER patient through sheer luck. I know some doctors are full of baloney but c'mon. I really hope maybe that we create better doctors that have a lot…

I believe it. I've used chatgpt for inspiration on how to craft difficult messages with empathy. I've been managing people for a long time and could've done it independently, but it's good to get help. It can be tough to express empathy when exhausted after a long day of urgent demands and responsibilities. This is no different than asking chatgpt to draft code that I could otherwise write from scratch. It's like hav…

I get the approach of stylistic advice. I think that people in this thread have two separate conversations, one about an empathetic style and one about empathy.

Empathy means sharing (and often uncomfortable) emotion with another person.

If what the text represents is true, i.e. the model helped you express you really feel, but you're too tired to write it, that's sounds like a net positive.

Although in my experience if I'm too tired to sound empathetic on my own, I'd rather avoid messaging people at all or put whatever message I have for them in context, e.g.: "Hey, It's been a long day and I'm knackered, so I'll be brief: ...". People appreciate being direct and honesty, but I don't work much in places like large corps any more where communication is already very formalised and "templated empathy" just follows the existing practices. (not saying that you are, just giving an example here).

Re: I’m an ER doctor. Here’s how I’m already using ChatGPT to help treat patients

#152

Post by [deleted] »

Madmallard wrote: post #29
givemeethekeys wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Trust but verify". If you can't verify, then don't trust. I've used ChatGPT for short scripts. I can read and test-run scripts to verify their correctness. On the other hand, asking it to do more complex programming is error-prone.

If you have to verify then there is no trust. That's not how trust works. I never liked the phrase.

[deleted]

Re: I’m an ER doctor. Here’s how I’m already using ChatGPT to help treat patients

#153

Post by einpoklum »

EA-3167 wrote: post #32
tazjin wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if ChatGPT has a 50% chance of giving the wrong diagnosis It depends on the average chance of the doctor giving the wrong diagnosies (I honestly have no idea?!)

There are different figures, partly as a result of how this question is studied. The Mayo Clinic did a famous study on people who sought a second opinion, and they found that something like 12% of people seeking that second opinion were correctly diagnosed. Obviously this isn't a fair sample since this is not only people seeking a second opinion, but one from a prestigious source. This narrative review discusses the…

Isn't seeking a second opinion something you usually do when the first opinion sounds fishy, doesn't seem to match the evidence, or when the doctor giving doesn't seem to be doing his job seriously (e.g. dismissive, preoccupied etc)? Or in cases where it is known to be a difficult situation which makes you think multiple diagnoses are needed?

Re: I’m an ER doctor. Here’s how I’m already using ChatGPT to help treat patients

#154

Post by rpastuszak »

heliodor wrote: post #67
firebirdn99 wrote: post #44

This really feels farcical, and kind of like vc bros hyping up a product. Considering this was a serious issue of life and death of a patient, it was surprising how it read like a prank or like the scene from Harold and Kumar, where Kumar plays a fake doctor and saves an ER patient through sheer luck. I know some doctors are full of baloney but c'mon. I really hope maybe that we create better doctors that have a lot…

The concept is right on point though: ChatGPT is excellent at writing "fluffy" pieces full of empathy, compassion, PR talk, politician speech, and any other wordy flavor you need. As an engineer who is unable to produce such writing, this tool is quite helpful!

Reading the comments I realised that:

- people are having two separate conversations: one about empathy, another about an empathetic-sounding style

- many commenters use different definitions of empathy and compassion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compassion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sympathy

Re: I’m an ER doctor. Here’s how I’m already using ChatGPT to help treat patients

#155

Post by tirpen »

vidarh wrote: post #133
firebirdn99 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many comments are saying it's helpful. But what happens when it's widespread, everyone crafting Hallmark type empathic messages to everyone. Or once everyone has bots, then most likely they will all be sent straight to spam or something. We will be inundated with such messaging.

Then if you don't want your messages to read like that, you'll use bots to condense and extract the bits you care about.

And thus we will have invented a lossy rarefaction scheme for communication?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rarefaction

Re: I’m an ER doctor. Here’s how I’m already using ChatGPT to help treat patients

#156

Post by TeMPOraL »

burnished wrote: post #74

I'm having a hard time buying this anecdote. Not even the bit where its implied that multiple people read the same script multiple times and that worked for soothing people, but the actual content of the before and after; the gpt version doesn't explain it any differently and the 'compassionate' writing was absurd. My most charitable interpretation is that the anecdote is true but the article itself was written by so…

> Side note; does anyone actually think that chat gpt succeeds at rewriting things 'compassionately' or 'more intelligently'?

Sure. There are some good examples in the replies already. For me, ChatGPT (specifically GPT-4, via API) does a better job than I do based on sheer breadth and command of vocabulary alone. I've used it a couple times to generate emotional texts and the results were quite good - though I'm not actually giving anyone the raw LLM output. The process always looked like:

1. Me describing in detail the kind of message I need, who the recipient is, and what the situational context is, and then asking ChatGPT to generate several variants.

2. LLM generating 2-3 variants, each of which is roughly 50% stellar, 50% meh.

3. Adding any missing details and trying again. And/or, if one of the variants looks particularly good/promising, asking the LLM to generate variations of that.

4. Taking the few best results, mixing them together, and blending with some of the text I independently wrote on my own.

In those few cases (and in more cases where I'd enlist GPT to write formal e-mails for me; the process is pretty much identical), the final outcome was a piece of text that's a sentence or phrase-level blend, with 50-60% of the phrases being AI-authored and the rest my own, and 100% of it edited and reviewed by me.

It still takes some work to write a good message this way, but I resort to this, because that 50% of AI-sourced text I incorporate is stellar - all well chosen words and phrases (many of them I kind of forgot they exist). It's something I could write completely on my own, but from my pre-GPT attempts I know that reaching this level would take me many hours of agonizing efforts, marked by strong feelings of self-doubt.

Re: I’m an ER doctor. Here’s how I’m already using ChatGPT to help treat patients

#157

Post by TeMPOraL »

protastus wrote: post #65
brigandish wrote: post #38

Who is surprised that in a match between a doctor's bedside manner and a machine's that a machine wins? The cold metal of a machine is nothing next to the coldness of a doctor's heart! ;)

The machine doesn't get tired after explaining the same thing 1000 times.

You haven't met the Emergency Medical Hologram yet, have you?

Re: I’m an ER doctor. Here’s how I’m already using ChatGPT to help treat patients

#158

Post by TeMPOraL »

average_hntist wrote: post #92
kaitai wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I passed this article & discussion on to physician spouse, who would specifically like me to reply to this comment: "You are being very emotional." Digging deeper (as the comment above alone isn't worthy of HN, IMO): "People believe what they want to believe because of small sample sizes. When there isn't a black & white answer people go back to their personal experience, which is limited. They will not be right in t…

This sort of response certainly seems indicative of a doctor with horrifically bad bedside manner. Families tend to be emotional when the health of their loved ones is at stake. I'm skeptical that a chatbot would help someone who can't grasp that.

The response is pretty clear and 100% correct: family is important but not in need of medical care. Making doctors focus too much attention on the needs of third parties will worsen the outcomes for actual patients.

Doctors are, on average, quite empathetic people. But humans in general are what they are, and the politics and economics of medicine prevent the doctors from saying the right thing[0] to overbearing or emotionally distraught third parties, so I can easily see how inserting a chatbot in between would improve the outcomes of actual patients.

(Though I am surprised there isn't dedicated staff for that yet. Or does it not work when people know they're talking to a PR doctor instead of the one treating their loved one?)

--

[0] - "Get the fuck out of my sickbay!" - https://giphy.com/gifs/paramountplus-star-trek-lower-decks-e...

Re: I’m an ER doctor. Here’s how I’m already using ChatGPT to help treat patients

#159

Post by TeMPOraL »

justin_oaks wrote: post #59
Madmallard wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have to verify then there is no trust. That's not how trust works. I never liked the phrase.

I agree. I've never liked the phrase either. Even so, I'll take "Trust but verify" as a shorthand for "Accept the output of a somewhat untrustworthy person/process, but verify the output before making use of it." Sometimes a short, inaccurate phrase wins out over the longer, accurate version.

There are bad and good uses of that phrase. I like the reading that goes "trust the intentions and skills of the other person, but recognize they're only human and can make mistakes, so if the thing is high-stakes, double-check anyway".
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