ChatGPT Health • Hacker News Board

Re: ChatGPT Health

#431

Post by jtbayly » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 1:42 PM UTC

Rebuff5007 wrote: post #379

mlmonkey wrote: post #156

My uncle had an issue with his balance and slurred speech. Doctors claimed dementia and sent him home. It kept becoming worse and worse. Then one day I entered the symptoms in ChatGPT (or was it Gemini?) and asked it for the top 3 hypotheses. The first one was related to dementia. The second was something else (I forget the long name). I took all 3 to his primary care doc who had kept ignoring the problem, and asked…

I've heard a lot of such anecdotes. I'm not saying its ill-intentioned, but the skeptic in me is cautious that this is the type of reasoning which propels the anti-vax movement. I wish / hope the medical community will address stories like this before people lose trust in them entirely. How frequent are mis-diagnosis like this? How often is "user research" helping or hurting the process of getting good health outcome…

I think the ultimate answer is that people must take responsibility for their own health and that of their children and loved ones. That includes research and double-checking your doctors. True, the result is that a good number of people will be convinced they have something (eg. autism) that they don't. But the anecdotes are piled up into giant mountains at this point. A good number of people in my family have had at least one doctor that has been useless in dealing with a particular problem. It required trying to figure out what was wrong, then finding a doctor that could help before there were correct diagnoses and treatments.

Re: ChatGPT Health

#432

Post by sjw987 » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 1:43 PM UTC

RobinL wrote: post #239

dash2 wrote: post #234

Specifically as someone in the UK, where doctors are free but extremely hard to get hold of, this is quite interesting to me.

Another interesting aspect is that the NHS app makes all your detailed health history (doctors notes, scan results etc.) available to you as the patient. Which in turn means you have the option of feeding it into ChatGPT. This feels potentially very valuable and a nice way of working around issues with whether doctors themselves are allowed to do it. I'm not sure this applies to every surgery, but certainly my dad ha…

Out of curiosity, do you know from when this data started being assigned? Is it just from when you install the NHS app and create some form of login or will it have everything there?

I hadn't heard of this before.

Re: ChatGPT Health

#433

Post by jtbayly » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 1:45 PM UTC

g947o wrote: post #395

Rebuff5007 wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard a lot of such anecdotes. I'm not saying its ill-intentioned, but the skeptic in me is cautious that this is the type of reasoning which propels the anti-vax movement. I wish / hope the medical community will address stories like this before people lose trust in them entirely. How frequent are mis-diagnosis like this? How often is "user research" helping or hurting the process of getting good health outcome…

Linking this anecdote to anti-vaxxing really seems a stretch, and I would like to see the reasoning behind that. My impression is that anti-vaxxers have more issues with vaccines themselves than with doctors who recommend them

They are closely related. The authority of the medical establishment is more and more questioned. And whenever it is correctly questioned, they lose a bit of their authority. It is only their authority that gets people vaccinated.

Re: ChatGPT Health

#434

Post by utopiah » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 1:49 PM UTC

wookmaster wrote: post #428

Rebuff5007 wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard a lot of such anecdotes. I'm not saying its ill-intentioned, but the skeptic in me is cautious that this is the type of reasoning which propels the anti-vax movement. I wish / hope the medical community will address stories like this before people lose trust in them entirely. How frequent are mis-diagnosis like this? How often is "user research" helping or hurting the process of getting good health outcome…

If you keep hearing anecdotes at what point is it statistically important ? IBM 15 years ago was selling a story about a search engine they created specifically for the medical field(they had it on jeopardy) where doctors spent 10 years before they figured this poor patients issue. They plugged the original doctors notes into it and the 4th result was the issue they took a decade to figure out. Memorizing dozens of m…

> If you keep hearing anecdotes at what point is it statistically important ?

Fair question but one has to keep in mind about ALL the other situations we do NOT hear about, namely all the failed attempts that did take time from professionals. It doesn't the successful attempts are not justified, solely that a LOT of positive anecdotes might give the wrong impressions that they are not radically most negative ones that are simply not shared. It's hard to draw conclusions either way without both.

Re: ChatGPT Health

#435

Post by davidmurdoch » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 1:50 PM UTC

hermanzegerman wrote: post #196

cyral wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting a potential answer right away is certainly temping over waiting weeks to get an appointment

You have to wait weeks to be seen by a family doctor?

In the US, yes.

Re: ChatGPT Health

#436

Post by beezlebroxxxxxx » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 1:50 PM UTC

websiteapi wrote: post #424

the amount of people willing to delegate to chatgpt tells me in the near future only rich people will be able to speak with a real doctor. the current top comment about someone's uncle being saved due to chatgpt guidance says it all.

Unfortunately, that's kind of already the case. The standard of care for wealthy people, who often purchase "Personal Medicine" services, can be astoundingly better than what is available to the general public. It's more like having a health team behind you than just a lone GP. They can push you through the system, get treatments, ask colleagues, and collaborate with other teams, way quicker.

Re: ChatGPT Health

#437

Post by cael450 » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 1:52 PM UTC

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #406

Rebuff5007 wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard a lot of such anecdotes. I'm not saying its ill-intentioned, but the skeptic in me is cautious that this is the type of reasoning which propels the anti-vax movement. I wish / hope the medical community will address stories like this before people lose trust in them entirely. How frequent are mis-diagnosis like this? How often is "user research" helping or hurting the process of getting good health outcome…

> How frequent are mis-diagnosis like this? The anecdote in question is not about mis-diagnosis, it's about a delayed diagnosis. And yeah, the inquiry sent a doctor down three paths, one of which led to a diagnosis, so let's be clear: no, the doctor didn't get it completely on their own, and: ChatGPT was, at best, 33% correct. The biggest problem in medicine right now (that's creating a lot of the issues people have…

I'm married to a provider. It is absolutely insane what she has to do for insurance. She's not a doctor, but she oversees extensive therapy for 5-10 kids at a time. Insurance companies completely dictate what she can and can't do, and frequently she is unable to do more in-depth, best-practice analysis because insurance won't pay for it. So her industry ends up doing a lot of therapy based on educated guesswork. Every few months, she has to create a 100+ page report for insurance. And on top of it, insurance denies the first submissions all the time which then cause her to burn a bunch of time on calls with the company appealing the peer review. And the "peer review" is almost always done by people who have no background in her field. It's basically akin to a cardiologist reviewing a family therapist's notes and deciding what is or isn't necessary. Except that my wife's job can be the difference between a child ever talking or not, or between a child being institutionalized or not when they become an adult. People who think private insurance companies are more efficient than government-run healthcare are nuts. Private insurance companies are way worse and actively degrade the quality of care.

Re: ChatGPT Health

#438

Post by davidmurdoch » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 1:55 PM UTC

logicallee wrote: post #412

ihtef wrote: post #408

I always check my blood test and mrı results with ChatGPT before showing to Doctor. Doctor says same thing what ChatGPT says and it's giving more clear and detailed information. However we shouldn't trust chatgpt result 100%. It's just good to take an idea. Also we shouldn't trust any doctor 100%

I ran a part of your comment through ChatGPT, and it said you're typing on a Turkish keyboard or have it set as your language. Is this true?

Wait. Why? What prompted this? The phrasing?

Re: ChatGPT Health

#439

Post by rl3 » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 1:56 PM UTC

wookmaster wrote: post #425

rl3 wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a sweeping generalization unsupported by facts. In reality you'll find the vast majority of GPs are highly intelligent and quite good at problem solving. In fact, I'd go so far as to say their training is so intensive and expansive that laypeople who make such comments are profoundly lacking in awareness on the topic. Physicians are still human, so like anything there's of course bad ones, specialists included…

You followed up a sweeping generalization with a sweeping generalization and a touch of bias. I imagine the issue with problem solving more lays in the system doctors are stuck in and the complete lack of time they have to spend on patients.

>You followed up a sweeping generalization with a sweeping generalization and a touch of bias.

As opposed to what, proving that GPs are highly trained, not inherently inferior to other types of physicians, and regularly conduct complex problem solving?

Heck, while I'm at it I may as well attempt to prove the sky is blue.

>I imagine the issue with problem solving more lays in the system doctors are stuck in and the complete lack of time they have to spend on patients.

Bingo.

Re: ChatGPT Health

#440

Post by exabrial » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 1:56 PM UTC

Going to a probabilistic system for something that can/should be deterministic sets off a lot of red flags.

I’ve worked medical software packages, specifically a drug interaction checker for hospitals. The system cannot be written like a social media website… it has to fail by default, and only succeed when an exact correct solution was determined. This result must be repeatable given the same inputs. The consequence is people die.