BS from MS about AI helping an MD

werefreeatlast@lemmy.world to Programmer Humor@programming.dev – 328 points –

Let's imagine the possibilities and theoretically demo the results based on current knowledge:

  1. yes AI made the process fast and the patient did not die unnecessarily.

  2. same but the patient died well.

  3. same but the patient died.

  4. same as either 1, 2, or 3 but AI made things slower.

Demo:

Pharmacy: Patient requires amoxicillin for a painful infection of the ear while allergic to penicillin:

AI: Sure! You will find penicillin in Isle 23 box number 5.

Pharmacy: the patient needs amoxicillin actually.

AI: Sure! The Patient must have an allergic reaction to more commonly used anti inflammatory medications.

Pharmacy: actually amoxicillin is more of an antibiotic, where can I find it?

AI: Sure! While you are correct that amoxicillin is an antibiotic, it is a well studied result that after an infection inflammation is reduced. You can find the inflammation through out the body including the region where the infection is located.

Pharmacy: amoxicillin location!

AI: Sure! Amoxicillin was invented in Beecham Research Laboratories.

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Actual pharmacist here, working in pharmacy IT.

Unlike other industries, Pharmacy is not particularly thrilled about or interested in AI. In fact, my hospital explicitly blocks access to all LLMs.

I was actually kind of hoping to see what Microsoft is claiming here, and just walked away from this post more confused.

I think it's in reference to this: https://news.microsoft.com/source/asia/features/taiwan-hospital-deploys-ai-copilots-to-lighten-workloads-for-doctors-nurses-and-pharmacists/

Looks like the benefit/headline comes from use of the entire software suite that provides access to a patient's chart/medical history including checks for interactions/allergies. Most of that has nothing to do with AI but since it has a feature that generates a summary via a language model the whole thing is marketed as an AI Copilot.

Good thing, you don't want medical advice from an LLM

You're not great taking medical advice from a doctor either, seeing how often they're wrong.

That's fair, but they tend to be more right than an LLM :P

I was trying to find an article I read about a year ago, about an experiment where AI was assisting a doctor. Where it suggested questions and possible diagnosis for the doctor to look into.

IIRC the result was both faster and more accurate diagnosis. Too bad I can't find it again now :(