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

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

#231

Post by robbrown451 » Thu, Jun 15, 2023, 5:15 PM UTC

layer8 wrote: post #142

robbrown451 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"and I (native speaker) think it sounds over the top sincere and dramatic, especially when the same person tends to talk in a completely different manner." Of course, you can actually tell ChatGPT to change its style and mannerisms. Here's an example when I was experimenting with this. It went a bit over the top in the other direction, but only because I was so explicit about asking to to be casual. https://chat.open…

This won't necessarily help non-native speakers who are not able to tell if and which adjustments are needed.

No, but if the AI is good enough, you can say things like "write in a non-formal style" and it will do just that. Whether or not ChatGPT can do this well 6 months from its launch isn't the point.

Right now ChatGPT tends to write formally and cautiously, for rather obvious reasons. Better to err on that side than the other. With a combination of thoughtful prompting, and AIs getting better over time, most of the arguments against using them in such situations fade.

Remember, the original article is not talking about different languages, it is simply about a doctor using it to help out. Obviously the doctor can scan it prior to showing it to anyone.

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

#232

Post by epcoa » Thu, Jun 15, 2023, 5:22 PM UTC

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.

I don’t think that first one is an ER doctor (having ER experience is not ER doctor - at least until COVID every medical student had 4 weeks of “experience”) - you’d just say you’re an ED physician. But more pertinent, on reading it and a reply I think what is being deemed realistic is the scenario (ie patients family arguing treatment) but that’s not terribly controversial, the followup comment even admits that they would not feel good if they were presented with an AI readout: “If they are not processing the information then you have to allow for that, but I do think some relatives would react very badly if given a printout from an AI to explain a situation”. So I don’t think this makes your case as strongly as you think.

The other one is hearsay agreeing with the “premise” which is a charitable way of saying the story itself is likely bullshit - and in the end disputes that ChatGPT is useful here (go actually read the comment).

For what it’s worth I think the meat of the story (ie the use of ChatGPT) is farcical.

One, I’ve been on the other side even before medical training, this idea that no doctor could imagine what it’s like to be on the other side is stupid. When I had questions about my dying family member prior to any medical training if the response was to pull out a canned script of what are clearly corp speak platitudes, I would have requested a different provider or a transfer.

And finally, pulmonary edema. Good example for an uninformed audience that doesn’t know better, but this is waaay too common - an ED doc in a medium busy service can easily see 10 presentations a day. This is so basic that this type of conversation happens many many times over (commonly multiple times a day for this same presentation). Answering family questions and addressing objections over routine presentations is something that an attending should have been doing for nearly a decade at least. In academic medicine we talk about how to do this better but I see no evidence this ChatGPT nonsense presented has anything new to add.

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

#233

Post by yeeetz » Thu, Jun 15, 2023, 5:32 PM UTC

easyThrowaway wrote: post #218

Xen9 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...hallucinatory happytalk that paints with a very broad brush, and delivers not the tone you want, but an abstracted 'popularized' tone likely to convince large numbers of stupid and gullible people." You capture essence beautifully.

A quick way I've found to recognize ChatGPT-written text is upon reading it aloud, it 's kinda obvious how constant and monotone it sounds, no matter the chosen style. It gives a very "metronomic" rhythm, almost like a krautrock song. It's kinda obvious once you notice it.

It is funny that you mention that. I've been feeling increasingly self-conscious about my own writing on the internet now because that's how I naturally write and talk, so I wonder how many people in the future are going to think it's just another AI comment written by ChatGPT.

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

#234

Post by firebirdn99 » Thu, Jun 15, 2023, 7:45 PM UTC

raxxorraxor wrote: post #164

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…

Problem is with high empathy is that it affects you too. That might be pretty exhausting in a stressful hospital environment.

Yes well summarized. I understood this too, and replied in another comment, which is how doctors many times come across as callous and really like robotic people, but it's bc they have to be ready to take on another case. The people who are sensitive don't stay for long, or make it all the way.

One one hand I feel, many developed that way as a means of adjusting to their profession. I'm not sure if they necessarily are the happiest versions of themselves if they are like that. What I mean is if they could choose to be more empathic without suffering would they? I'm thinking they would, as it's a human thing to feel more. Reducing the suffering is another point to solve. Essentially, I don't know how comforting AI's would be as opposed to another human.

In that case, how can we make robots/AI do the dirty work, and make humans do the more empathic work. Maybe have separate doctors that just do the communicating part, while doctors+specialty AI robots(in the short term transition until it's fully autonomous robots?) do the surgeries, etc that require steady, stable minds, and lower empathy.

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

#235

Post by burnished » Thu, Jun 15, 2023, 8:00 PM UTC

southernplaces7 wrote: post #224

robbrown451 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Side note; does anyone actually think that chat gpt succeeds at rewriting things 'compassionately' or 'more intelligently'?" Often, sure. A few days ago I asked ChatGPT about a situation that needed compassion and wisdom. I thought it did way better than the 5 or 6 people I had talked to about it. https://chat.openai.com/share/2dd26347-3fbd-483f-b567-21c040... (ignore the first question, which was silly) FYI, we're…

I just read the GPT snippet in the response link you gave, and while it superficially seems well written, the text is hardly what i'd call moving or good. Instead it tries just hard enough at covering all the formulaic points of empathy and sympathy to instead emerge without a human spark of either. Essentially, it reads more like a personalized distillation of a generic committee-made sympathy note. If this is today…

You're bringing in what you expect to see here then - that would qualify as a thoughtful response from a human.

Or, prove it and share and example that puts it to shame by comparison.

Oh, or, you could just genuinely be ignorant and struggle how to understand how other feel sometimes feel when dealing with difficult decisions.

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

#236

Post by firebirdn99 » Thu, Jun 15, 2023, 8:06 PM UTC

dkarras wrote: post #182

basisword wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Helpful until someone reading your “writing” realises it’s AI and that you’re a robot who needs AI to write something with empathy or compassion. I’d much rather hear someone’s really voice in their writing than something false. It reminds me of people in certain places who are fake nice and fake positive 100% of the time. It’s draining to be around them.

It is also draining to be around people that always require feeling heard and validated or else they get crabby. Two sides to everything. The doc in this story probably does not require AI to write something compassionate. He simply does not have the bandwidth to do it while juggling critical patients and their family while they are not taking no for an answer and insisting on inappropriate treatment.

Isn't that why there are nurses, or maybe we need in-between positions of people who actually do the diagnosis, surgery, and those to explain them. Wait, those are nurses?

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

#237

Post by robbrown451 » Thu, Jun 15, 2023, 8:32 PM UTC

burnished wrote: post #235

southernplaces7 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just read the GPT snippet in the response link you gave, and while it superficially seems well written, the text is hardly what i'd call moving or good. Instead it tries just hard enough at covering all the formulaic points of empathy and sympathy to instead emerge without a human spark of either. Essentially, it reads more like a personalized distillation of a generic committee-made sympathy note. If this is today…

You're bringing in what you expect to see here then - that would qualify as a thoughtful response from a human. Or, prove it and share and example that puts it to shame by comparison. Oh, or, you could just genuinely be ignorant and struggle how to understand how other feel sometimes feel when dealing with difficult decisions.

:)

https://photos.app.goo.gl/UjC7AxbZ4DBa7g2E6

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

#238

Post by ilaksh » Thu, Jun 15, 2023, 9:29 PM UTC

wolverine876 wrote: post #49

ilaksh wrote: post #6

Theoretically something like BioMedLM and/or a vector search over clinical research and/or GPT-4 with cited sources etc. could be useful in some diagnostic circumstances to at least give doctors ideas, right? What he is talking about here is just an incredibly common scenario that the doctor and everyone is already very familiar with. Which is basically delaying the inevitable for people who are in some ways already…

> Theoretically something like BioMedLM and/or a vector search over clinical research and/or GPT-4 with cited sources etc. could be useful in some diagnostic circumstances to at least give doctors ideas, right? Anything is possible, but consider this doctor's review of ChatGPT's diagonistic output: > ChatGPT works fairly well as a diagnostic assistant — but only if you feed it perfect information, and the actual pati…

That review is one anecdote which does not specify the ChatGPT model used (which vary widely in performance), is not BioMedLM, is not a vector search, etc.

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

#239

Post by mattkrause » Thu, Jun 15, 2023, 10:12 PM UTC

williamcotton wrote: post #183

mattkrause wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can learn to write concisely.

I see what you’re trying to do there but you should have said “one” instead of “you” to have the same effect!

I waffled on whether you/one would be better!

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

#240

Post by dkarras » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 1:26 AM UTC

bemusedthrow75 wrote: post #211

dkarras wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Making the text more fluffy will not make it more empathetic, Of course not, but empathy in communication (not in action) is full of fluff. It almost requires it. >Our bullshit receptors are good spotting dishonesty, so it'll just sound cringe All "genuine" affirmation for the sake of empathy sounds cringe to me. I'd rather the doctor devoted their time to doing their job well instead of trying to make someone feel…

> Of course not, but empathy in communication (not in action) is full of fluff. It almost requires it. Empathy doesn't require fluff at all. (Think of all the short, poignant messages you've sent or received when someone is upset.) The corporate need to not give ground on a complaint is where all that reassuring, repetitive, empty BS comes from. > All "genuine" affirmation for the sake of empathy sounds cringe to me.…

>(Think of all the short, poignant messages you've sent or received when someone is upset.)

If it is short and not fluffy enough, it risks sounding dismissive. Those short messages generally pave way for a deeper conversation about the subject.

>Honestly with "for the sake of empathy" it sounds like you really don't place a high value on empathy (which is not unusual, or necessarily wrong).

Not really, I think empathy is important in the right setting, it is not the most important thing. Certainly not in the ER if the doctor is overworked and have lives at stake. If they have the bandwidth, sure. If not, can't blame them.

>But if that is the case you're quite obviously not the right person to assess whether ChatGPT and the like can "help with that" in that context! :-)

Disagree. I know how to sound empathetic for those that need it. Some people need words of affirmations and validation to be lifted. I am not one of them but I understand. It is not that hard. Modern LLMs are more than capable of creating the prose for that and more. There is a time and place for everything though. My empathy generally drives me to action and solving problems.