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Dr. Roshan Abid says she used to feel like the second doctor her patients consulted, after Google. But as artificially intelligent chatbots become increasingly accessible, she is now doctor No. 3.
Abid says that as more people turn to apps such as ChatGPT Health and Claude for Healthcare before their appointments, it is shaping the way Nova Scotia physicians provide care.
“People are understandably worried if they have a symptom,” Abid says. But what AI often misses, she adds, is the critical thinking and patient context that doctors are trained to apply.
She says online information about GLP-1 medications like Ozempic is often rife with misinformation that she needs to help patients unlearn.
For the thousands of Nova Scotians without a family doctor, and those trying to avoid emergency room wait times, that important context is often missed.
Abid says that from a health-care perspective, she does not view AI as either good or bad, but rather as a tool that both patients and doctors ought to use responsibly.
Dr. Matthew Clarke, Nova Scotia Health’s chief medical information officer, says with thousands of Nova Scotians using AI, it is helpful when patients are honest about their usage.
He says patients often will not volunteer that they have consulted AI out of fear of the stigma associated with the technology, but that it becomes apparent later where their perceptions originate.
Clarke says he is also seeing patients not only consult AI about symptoms and diagnoses, but also about how to communicate with their doctors.
“It’s really helped them consolidate their thoughts and understanding of their situation,” he says.
“I think that’s probably something that I’ve seen certainly where AI has helped.”
Just as patients are making use of AI, Clarke says Nova Scotia physicians are using it too — for everything from transcribing medical visits to consulting databases for tricky diagnoses.
He says strict and evolving regulations in Canada and Nova Scotia govern how physicians can use AI, protecting patient privacy and data.
Dr. Peter Lin, director of primary care initiatives at the Canadian Heart Research Centre, says artificial intelligence within health care can help patients and doctors alike, but he cautions those seeking its benefits to be careful.
A doctor’s use of AI is generally heavily regulated, as is the information patients enter into Nova Scotia’s own AI-powered virtual assistant, Nova, Clarke says.
But chatbots such as ChatGPT and Gemini are not, Lin says.
By inputting health data into an AI platform, Lin says users consent to that data being used as the company that owns the platform pleases.
“They use that information to train their system,” he says. “And because you have an account with them, they actually know that it’s you.”
He says even if companies strive for user privacy, the risk of bad actors and data breaches should always factor into decisions about submitting personal health information.
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