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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

#201

Post by zikzak »

fifteenforty wrote: post #195
seabombs wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author is a doctor, but also an executive at a health-focused VC fund, with several AI companies in it's portfolio. Helpful context to have before reading his article I think.

The most unbelievable part of this story is that he claims to have read it out to the family.

I am currently looking for a new Team Lead. I interviewed a guy yesterday who performed well in a soft skills interview and so this was his tech interview with a senior dev and myself. He was doing OK at first. As the questions got a little more nuanced, there were these pauses. Eventually, he got flustered and asked to resume later.

We agreed to this since he said he'd been dealing with a production issue for several hours before the scheduled time (I had offered to reschedule at no detriment to him before we began but he insisted on doing it then).

The developer and I met after this first interview and discussed his answers. We both thought he was "googling" (we are older people, stuck in the past).

Later that day, back on another call with this guy, my senior dev starts typing my questions into ChatGPT and getting back essentially the answers he's giving us. I start with more nuanced questions and he's done. He just kept reiterating platitudes could not explain why he was saying them, etc.

I felt bad for him, he was trying to get a job beyond his technical knowledge. But ultimately, this was dishonest and I would have found out very quickly he was not ready for the job.

If anyone is wondering, I gave him a chance to tell me why he was pausing for so long before answering and why his answers didn't seem to directly address my questions and he just insisted he was NOT pausing (he was, for up to 30 seconds at a time). It was generally just a really disappointing experience for all of us, I would imagine.

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

#202

Post by bemusedthrow75 »

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!

Empathy and compassion isn't in the words. It's in the intent behind them.

Faked empathy literally isn't empathy. (Fake compassion is a little more arguable; there are clearly situations where faked compassion is better than no compassion.)

Not everyone needs this or can do this on the same scale. I have really had to learn to find empathy and be unafraid of it, and I definitely have nearly zero tact (if you have no tact, you practise thinking good things).

But if you need to be able to practise empathy and compassion regularly, and you are incapable of it, find someone who can to that for you. Celebrate their ability to do it and you'll benefit from it yourself. Trade them something they don't do so well.

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

#203

Post by JaneLovesDotNet »

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! ;)

There is something comforting about how ChatGPT never becomes overly emotional. I'm not surprised it outperforms humans in bedside manner except for occasions where the human is particularly adept.

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

#204

Post by sarchertech »

dsr_ wrote: post #190
kelnos wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, your comment about the state of doctors is quite lacking in empathy for the doctors themselves. Regardless of whether or not this article is a fake, I think you don't quite understand how overworked most doctors are, and how little time they have been given per patient to take care of what needs to be done.

Remember that the AMA has been limiting the supply of doctors in order to maintain high wages, and the working conditions for interns/residents amounts to hazing.

That’s not how that works. The AMA doesn’t control the number of physicians. 20+ years ago the AMA supported congress reducing the number of residencies because at the time there was a predicted glut of doctors.

However the AMA has reversed that position and supports increasing the number. Again though they don’t control the number of physicians.

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

#205

Post by sukilot »

Applejinx wrote: post #189

I'd bet money that the Medium article has also been, in part, rewritten by ChatGPT. Here's why: the story being told is that of a doctor, needing to communicate, being able to get through to 'regular folks' through talking down to them using ChatGPT (which is actually well suited to that task, once you acknowledge that hallucination can also mean losing stuff in translation). Then, the article itself, including the d…

[dead]

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

#206

Post by bemusedthrow75 »

Applejinx wrote: post #189

I'd bet money that the Medium article has also been, in part, rewritten by ChatGPT. Here's why: the story being told is that of a doctor, needing to communicate, being able to get through to 'regular folks' through talking down to them using ChatGPT (which is actually well suited to that task, once you acknowledge that hallucination can also mean losing stuff in translation). Then, the article itself, including the d…

I am not convinced, largely because ChatGPT has to have been trained on exactly this kind of pre-existing hallucinatory happy talk.

It has always struck me as not coincidental that it writes, long-form, like a college admissions essay, apologises for massive error breezily like a tech support person, and has the confident certain tone of a Californian software developer.

There were, after all, these humans involved its development.

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

#207

Post by ClumsyPilot »

Calavar wrote: post #200
Kiro wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actual ER doctors disagree with you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36336615 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36337227 Classic HN to confidently dismiss something in areas we're actually clueless about.

For what it's worth, I'm a doctor and I find this story hard to believe. It does sound to me like wishful thinking by an AI hype guy. In my experience, these sorts of situations happen when two things come together: 1. The patient's family has just enough medical knowledge to fall onto the wrong part of a Dunning-Kruger curve. 2. The family has certain beliefs about the medical establishment. Namely, that medical sta…

> The family has certain beliefs about the medical establishment. Namely, that medical staff (especially doctors) are trained in medical school to have an inflexible way of thinking

This belief saved my mother's life.

We came with complainst of lung issies, for some reason doctors decided allergies are mosh likely but we wanted an X-ray. Months later they finally did a scan and found lung cancer.

I don't know if they are following a flow chart, but when dealing with NHS doctors I sometimes feel like I am talking to a bot.

They have the same routines, for exanple they will never ever check for Vitamin D defficiency, etc.

I cant imagine what will happen once real bots / chatgpt becomes widespread.c

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

#208

Post by sukilot »

Calavar wrote: post #200
Kiro wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actual ER doctors disagree with you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36336615 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36337227 Classic HN to confidently dismiss something in areas we're actually clueless about.

For what it's worth, I'm a doctor and I find this story hard to believe. It does sound to me like wishful thinking by an AI hype guy. In my experience, these sorts of situations happen when two things come together: 1. The patient's family has just enough medical knowledge to fall onto the wrong part of a Dunning-Kruger curve. 2. The family has certain beliefs about the medical establishment. Namely, that medical sta…

[dead]

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

#209

Post by sarchertech »

Kiro wrote: post #150
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…

Actual ER doctors disagree with you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36336615 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36337227 Classic HN to confidently dismiss something in areas we're actually clueless about.

My wife, an ER doctor, doesn’t believe that the doctor read the script to the patient. She thought that was completely absurd. She started laughing when she got to that part of the article.

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

#210

Post by Levitz »

fastball wrote: post #105
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.

And? What is wrong with being inundated with empathy?

It's not actual empathy. It's writing that seems empathic.

The problem is that, exposed to enough writing that seems empathic but isn't, a person will learn that empathic writing is not sincere. We lose that as a society in the same way that if I check my email and see a "YOU'VE WON" subject I don't get excited, because I know it's fake.

Do we really want that? A world in which when you see an empathic message, the first thing you think of is that it's fake? I find the idea to be quite sad.

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