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I used Claude Code to get a second opinion on my MRI

antoine.fi

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Re: I used Claude Code to get a second opinion on my MRI

#261

Post by ForceBru »

meindnoch wrote: post #145
nostrebored wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Daily allergy tablets are associated with huge increases in early onset Alzheimer’s. Glad you found something that works, but might be good to get some of the allergen injections :)

Misinformation. Only first-generation antihistamines with anticholinergic effects are associated with cognitive decline in elderly patients .

LMAO at how the two of you sound authoritative and knowledgeable, but neither linked to ANY studies (or at least personal anecdotes) to support your claims.

Yet here we are, warning each other about the dangers of LLM hallucinations. Humans "hallucinate" (provide random authoritative-looking information without anything to back it up) pretty often too.

Re: I used Claude Code to get a second opinion on my MRI

#262

Post by jrockway »

rafterydj wrote: post #15

I feel like I'm going nuts. There are other commenters saying this is a good practice they've also done for other injuries. You are saying you are an actual radiologist and immediately clock the problems with its advice. I have seen this pattern over and over again. Anytime someone is an actual expert at anything, AI output appears insufficient or incomplete or outright misleading. It is only when you do not know wha…

I came here to post this as my experience. AI is magical when I apply it to something I know nothing about. It far exceeds my expectations every single time. I know nothing, but here is a report with animated graphics explaining exactly what I asked it to explain!

In fields where I'm an expert... it makes a lot of silly mistakes that are annoying and I feel like they would just cascade if I didn't correct them early. (I still think it's a net win, but... I watch it and it watches me, and we both do better work. I'd even apply the "magical" adjective when it does stuff I hate but know how to do, like edit Helm charts. What would normally be 20 minutes of me griping about YAML indentation is just a correct diff in seconds. I'll take it!)

So with that in mind, I tend to distrust output that I can't verify. If a doctor was recommending surgery and I thought the plan was too aggressive, I'd get a second opinion. I don't expect Claude Code to have much medical diagnostic ability, as that is really not what the model is trained for, and I know how it performs on work that it's trained and fine-tuned for. That is not to say the output is wrong and that it can't have diagnostic value, just that I personally wouldn't feel safe trusting it. Wrap up the same model with fine-tuning in the domain and a harness that reminds Claude to do a lot of sanity checks, perhaps with a human in the loop to guide it back onto the rails when it gets hyperfixated on something that doesn't matter? That could very much be a useful AI product.

Re: I used Claude Code to get a second opinion on my MRI

#263

Post by blanched »

backtoyoujim wrote: post #242
sxg wrote: post #6

I'm a radiologist but can't really weigh in without seeing the full 3D MRI dataset. Regarding this point: > They performed shockwave therapy on my shoulder even though a recent clinical practice guideline says clinicians should not use or recommend shockwave therapy for rotator-cuff tendinopathy without calcification; I was told during ultrasound that there was no calcification. Ultrasound isn't a great way to assess…

Does radiology really make +$700,000.00 a year ? Someone on reddit claiming to be a radiologist claimed that. I wonder where the savings will go when those jobs are gone.

You know the radiologist you're responding to is a real person? Your last line seems needlessly callous.

Re: I used Claude Code to get a second opinion on my MRI

#264

Post by chpatrick »

I recently had a pretty bad injury and out of curiosity I asked Gemini what it thought based on some CT scan slice images (and no other information). Surprisingly it came to exactly the same diagnosis and treatment plan as my doctors, but the big advantage is that I could ask it follow up questions any time, whereas the doctors barely explained anything.

Re: I used Claude Code to get a second opinion on my MRI

#265

Post by orangecat »

grayhatter wrote: post #149
rafterydj wrote: post #15

I feel like I'm going nuts. There are other commenters saying this is a good practice they've also done for other injuries. You are saying you are an actual radiologist and immediately clock the problems with its advice. I have seen this pattern over and over again. Anytime someone is an actual expert at anything, AI output appears insufficient or incomplete or outright misleading. It is only when you do not know wha…

> This is itself alarming to me, but no one else seems to find this to be quite damning for the AI services being offered, preferring instanced to be wowed by the convenience and speed at which they can be delivered unreviewed and unproven information. Welcome to the club? This new awareness you've found over the true quality of LLM based GenAI output has been what "all the haters" have been mad about for-ever. That…

An LLM can only output the mean next likely token, and then add a bunch of extra noise on top of that so it feels interesting and not repetitive.

So when an LLM was asked to analyze the unit distance conjecture, it just spat out a bunch of average-or-random tokens that coincidentally happened to correspond to a valid proof that had eluded humans for decades?

Re: I used Claude Code to get a second opinion on my MRI

#266

Post by motbus3 »

The only part of the message I think it would be interesting to the author: what if you set two instances to prove each other arguments wrong considering that each reads one of the report as their POV?

I didnt see the full process but I used unet models for tumor detection so I am somewhat familiar with the possible caveats of any evaluation from a engineer perspective.

First, I would like to point that unfortunately, it is not uncommon to go to two different human doctors and also get two unreliable diagnosis and treatment. The biggest problem, in the way people plan to use ai on health is the lack of liability.

A bug on a regular old web site doesn't kill anyway nor cause pain and suffering (most of the times) but misdiagnosis + the fact that a model is very good on presenting arguments even when it is completely wrong.

Claude code, and I am talking about opus 4.8 here, can tell rivers of information about code pattern and develop the poopiest code the next line.

This is a machine that will deliver a sort of templates document based on the input information but it is not exactly doing the work if you don't directly it to do it right constantly.

Because the model isn't thinking I wonder what happens if you set multiple agents to communicate and defend their point with some sort of harsh penalty prompt for not fulfilling its goal. There are some safety system prompts on Claude models that will trigger it to be very carefully to write. Like: you cannot make mistakes. "You need to ensure that it is correct or someone might end up hurt or even dead"

But you would need two agents and a setup to communicate via pipes or files.

Re: I used Claude Code to get a second opinion on my MRI

#267

Post by scosman »

rafterydj wrote: post #15

I feel like I'm going nuts. There are other commenters saying this is a good practice they've also done for other injuries. You are saying you are an actual radiologist and immediately clock the problems with its advice. I have seen this pattern over and over again. Anytime someone is an actual expert at anything, AI output appears insufficient or incomplete or outright misleading. It is only when you do not know wha…

I dunno. I know a lot of software engineering experts. AI isn't always right, but neither are the people, and it's getting better and better.

Software is one domain where it excels because of structured training data and simulation environments, so I'm well aware it's better here than other areas.

Still there's somewhere balanced between saying every time it's "insufficient or incomplete or outright misleading" and "just trust AI". AI's a useful source of information/reasoning/research, but know you need to validate it's answers for important decisions.

Re: I used Claude Code to get a second opinion on my MRI

#268

Post by matsemann »

I tried the same on images of disks in my back. The ai picked a slice not from the middle and used that to say they were too small (since it was looking at a slice towards the edge) and basically told me my life was over and my pain would last forever.

Luckily my disks were fine. Wouldn't trust it. Additionally, an MRI of a pain-free, healthy human still would show lots of things and damage. Unless it coincides with a symptom, it's probably harmless. That's why the history is important when looking at images. Can't just upload something and hope for findings.

Re: I used Claude Code to get a second opinion on my MRI

#269

Post by gofreddygo »

rafterydj wrote: post #15

I feel like I'm going nuts. There are other commenters saying this is a good practice they've also done for other injuries. You are saying you are an actual radiologist and immediately clock the problems with its advice. I have seen this pattern over and over again. Anytime someone is an actual expert at anything, AI output appears insufficient or incomplete or outright misleading. It is only when you do not know wha…

This is true in broader contexts too. Bunch of experts can't agree on something fundamental which is hard to prove/ disprove, and they have strong opinions on the topic.

AI is much worse.

Re: I used Claude Code to get a second opinion on my MRI

#270

Post by muldvarp »

dwa3592 wrote: post #168

Was it 2016 when Geoff hinton said that radiology was a dead career? Well, we now have the best model of our time (trillions of $$$ of investments) telling us something completely different(and wrong) from a human expert. I would really like someone calling out dario, sam, elon on these things and hear their explanations but alas, a man can only dream.

> Was it 2016 when Geoff hinton said that radiology was a dead career?

Funny how the jobs most at risk of automation now are tech jobs.

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