All posts tagged: Doctors

Doctors Are Worried About AI. They Use It Anyway.

Every knowledge-based profession may one day reach the point when AI outperforms the human experts. In medicine, that day appeared to come in April. A group of primarily Harvard and Stanford researchers announced the results of a study that pitted ChatGPT against hundreds of physicians in a diagnostic obstacle course involving written medical mysteries and information from real-world patients. The bot had won, and the humans weren’t entirely happy about it. “I get a little bit queasy about how some of these results might be used,” Adam Rodman, a lead author on the study, said at a press conference just ahead of its publication in the journal Science. The work had amounted to an academic exercise, he told reporters; as thorough as it may have been, it did not prove that ChatGPT or any other AI tool was ready to become a standard part of medical practice. His caution was in line with that of other experts, yet as Rodman knew, most people will ignore the warning. AI has already wormed its way into the …

The wearable health boom is creating a data overload for doctors – what happens next

Published by Miika Tikkanen

Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET’s key takeaways Wearables generate a lot of data, but doctors can’t always use it. A system built for episodic care struggles with streaming data. Some doctors are hopeful advances like AI could help. Cardiologist Dr. David Kao is used to patients walking into appointments armed with data from their wearables. One Wednesday morning in late May was no different: a patient showed him stats from her smart band that she was worried about. “Probably 70% of it, I just don’t know what to do with clinically, because it’s all been made up by the company,” said Kao, who is an associate professor of cardiology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. “And then there were like two things that were incredibly useful that we would not have had if she wasn’t wearing her [device].” Scenes like this one have been playing out across the country for more than a decade as patients and doctors struggle to handle the glut of metrics produced by wearable technology. …

Rod Stewart cancels Las Vegas shows at last minute on ‘doctor’s advice’

Published by Daniella Wilson

Rod Stewart canceled two shows in Las Vegas this weekend just hours before he was due to take the stage. The 81-year-old former Faces frontman had been scheduled to perform last night May 29 and tonight May 30 at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace as part of his long-running “Encore” residency. However, both shows were nixed shortly before Stewart was scheduled to appear. In a statement to Las Vegas Review, a representative for Stewart said: “Following his doctor’s advice, Rod Stewart has regretfully cancelled his performances at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas on May 29 and 30, but is scheduled to return with shows beginning June 2.” In an additional message from Stewart himself, the singer added: “My apologies to my family of fans. I am on vocal rest as I recover from a sinus infection. I look forward to seeing you at a future show at Caesars Palace or on tour this summer.” Rod Stewart has canceled two dates of his Las Vegas residency but is expected to return next week …

Earliest use of anaesthetics uncovered in Chinese doctor’s tomb

Published by Miika Tikkanen

Two medical instruments recovered from the 15th-century tomb of a Chinese surgeon carry traces of an anaesthetic compound, the earliest chemical evidence ever found of doctors attempting to reduce the pain of a medical procedure. The surgical scissors and tweezers were unearthed in 1974 from the tomb of a famous doctor named Xia Quan who lived from 1348 to 1411, in Jiangsu province. Congcang Zhao at Northwest University in Xi’an, China, and his colleagues used lasers to study the composition of residues on the instruments, revealing traces of aconitine. This compound is produced by plants of the Aconitum genus, commonly known as wolfsbane and monkshood. They are frequently listed as ingredients in ancient Chinese medicinal prescriptions. Aconitine interacts with sodium channels in the cell membranes of neurons. At the right dose, it has an anaesthetic effect, but it is highly toxic and is rarely used today due to the risks of poisoning. The residues are concentrated on the blades of the scissors and the tips of the tweezers, making it unlikely the presence of aconitine …

Got maggots? These doctors are bringing the bugs into their practice on purpose

Published by Sam Flores

The lowly maggot gets a bad rap, mostly known for feeding on corpses and rotting meat. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content. But modern medicine is giving its reputation new life — as a tiny surgeon. Polly Cleveland, of New York City, turned to so-called maggot therapy when she was caring for her late husband, Tom, in 2023. “After a stay in the hospital, he came back with this terrible sore on his left heel,” Cleveland said. Later, he developed a bedsore on his buttocks. “These kinds of wounds really smell foul.” The doctors and nurses treating her husband had never heard of using maggots for wound cleaning. Cleveland, who has a lifelong interest in bugs, found a lab established by Dr. Ronald Sherman, a pioneer of modern maggot therapy, and was able to order a shipment of maggots overnight. Polly Cleveland and her late husband, Tom Haines.Courtesy Polly Cleveland Medicinal maggots are considered FDA-cleared medical devices, which are specially raised in laboratories to be germ-free. …

Study: AI can outperform doctors on diagnosing cases

Published by Miika Tikkanen

Artificial intelligence that can “reason” is now capable of diagnosing real-life medical scenarios as well as or better than physicians, according to the results of a study published Thursday in Science. The researchers used previously unknown clinical cases to test OpenAI’s reasoning model o1 against the company’s older model, GPT-4, as well as physicians and medical residents in training. In a range of experiments, the o1 model often improved significantly on GPT-4’s diagnostic ability and bested physicians, too. When tested with the electronic health records of random emergency department cases from a Boston hospital, the o1 model was diagnostically accurate more than two-thirds of the time at initial triage. Two expert attending physicians had correct diagnoses roughly half of the time. SEE ALSO: What AI can tell you about your blood test Dr. Robert Wachter, professor and chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, described the study’s findings as “important” and suggested it’s now “indisputable” that modern AI will outperform older large language models and doctors when asked to …

Why are doctors showing women scans without their consent in abortion clinics?

Published by Daniella Wilson

Whether a woman should or should not have an abortion is a choice that people make and others like to have opinions about. We know this – and have done for some time. Hence, terminations are still illegal in many parts of the world, including Malta, El Salvador, and Egypt, and highly restricted in even more – the overturning of Roe v Wade in 2022 has enabled 26 US states to have either hostile or illegal policies against it. Sometimes, the people who are trying to influence your decision are a little closer to us. It might be your partner, a family member, or a friend. One person it really shouldn’t be, though, is your doctor. And yet, far too often this seemingly obvious fact is being ignored. We see this reality reflected in the first episode of Margo’s Got Money Troubles, Apple TV’s latest comedy drama starring Elle Fanning, adapted from Rufi Thorpe’s novel of the same name. The show tells the story of Margo, a college student who gets pregnant after sleeping with …

BMA ‘driving junior doctors towards Streeting’

Published by Sam Flores

The militant British Medical Association (BMA) is driving doctors towards Wes Streeting, a junior medic has claimed. Dr Olly Scargill, 25, a junior doctor and Conservative councillor in North Tyneside, said the Health Secretary was “doing a terrible job” but the BMA was “pushing doctors like me towards him”. Thousands of doctors starting their careers in the NHS face unemployment in the coming months because they are unable to gain a coveted speciality training place to continue their careers. The union, which is locked in a pay dispute with the Government, rejected a deal that included 4,500 new training posts, with 1,000 brought forward to this month, despite a last-minute ultimatum from Sir Keir Starmer. Junior doctors, now called resident doctors, are staging a six-day strike from 7am on Tuesday. The deal had also included an average pay rise of 4.9 per cent but it did not meet the union’s demands for “full pay restoration”, which it said required a rise of at least 26 per cent. Doctors will still get a 3.5 per cent …

5 Symptoms Women Over 40 Often Assume Are Just Aging, But Doctors Say Are Treatable

Published by Jenni Sidey

For generations, women feared getting older. The symptoms of aging and perimenopause, like brain fog, mood swings and even self-esteem issues felt inevitable. After all, we live in a shallow society that prioritizes our looks and desirability above all else. Aging often feels like becoming invisible or, worse, unlovable. Thanks to healthcare providers like Sheryl A. Ross, MDs, an award-winning women’s health physician, we no longer have to simply endure suffer the pain or even the shame associated with perimenopause. As Dr. Sherry shared on the Getting Open podcast, “There used to be 34 recognized symptoms of menopause. Now it’s closer to 70 to 100. We’re still working on the association of all the effects of estrogen. We can restore estrogen by simply giving hormone replacement therapy. And it reverses all these symptoms that affect our quality of life.” Five symptoms women over 40 assume are ‘just aging, but doctors say are very treatable Western medicine now recognizes what women have been trying to describe to their doctors for decades: perimenopause can be a profoundly …

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All posts tagged: Doctors

Doctors Are Worried About AI. They Use It Anyway.

The wearable health boom is creating a data overload for doctors – what happens next

Rod Stewart cancels Las Vegas shows at last minute on ‘doctor’s advice’

Earliest use of anaesthetics uncovered in Chinese doctor’s tomb

Got maggots? These doctors are bringing the bugs into their practice on purpose

Study: AI can outperform doctors on diagnosing cases

Why are doctors showing women scans without their consent in abortion clinics?

BMA ‘driving junior doctors towards Streeting’

5 Symptoms Women Over 40 Often Assume Are Just Aging, But Doctors Say Are Treatable