In August, Lance Johnson woke up in the middle of the night with excruciating stomach pain in his lower right side. He initially blamed it on the pizza and ice cream he had enjoyed the night before. But five sleepless hours later, the 17-year-old from Phoenix was still suffering, so he decided to consult the nearest expert: ChatGPT.<\/p>\n
\u201cI described what I’d eaten the night before and where the pain was, and I was like, \u2018Do you think it’s just my stomach?\u2019 And then it said that it sounded like it was appendicitis based on how long it was lasting and where it was,\u201d Johnson says. \u201cI kept asking it more questions, like could it be anything else? And it said, \u2018Based on what you described, you should get it checked out.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson followed the bot\u2019s advice\u2014and, sure enough, the doctors at the emergency room soon said that he did, in fact, have appendicitis and needed immediate surgery. When he told them he had suspected as much because of ChatGPT\u2019s insights, \u201cI think they were kind of surprised that it would answer something like that\u2014that it would diagnose me before they did,\u201d Johnson said during a recent Zoom interview alongside his parents. \u201cI didn\u2019t know anything about appendicitis before. I didn\u2019t even know it was in the bottom right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Similar scenarios are playing out across the country as ChatGPT usurps Dr. Google. One recent survey<\/a> found that 1 in 7 adults over age 50 use AI to seek health information, while 1 in 4 of those under 30 do so. Usage is particularly prevalent<\/a> in areas with limited access to health care providers. While there are plenty of potential risks\u2014like receiving inaccurate, outdated, or generic information\u2014some doctors say AI platforms can be helpful, if you know how to use them the right way.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere is 100% a place for these tools to enrich patients’ care journeys,\u201d says Dr. Adam Rodman, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and a general internist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he is director of AI programs for the Carl J. Shapiro Center for Education and Research. \u201cLearning language models (LLMs) have very powerful abilities in some domains, but they can fail dramatically in others\u2014you don\u2019t want to rely on them as a doctor. However, LLMs are, I think, the best tool to help you understand your health right now.\u201d<\/p>\n We asked providers to share the smartest ways patients are using AI platforms like ChatGPT\u2014and how they might benefit your health, too.<\/p>\n Ask it medical facts<\/p>\n LLMs are a helpful way to get answers to fact-based queries\u2014\u201cwhat do plasma cells do?\u201d\u2014and questions about disease processes: \u201cWhat happens when they mutate and become cancerous?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not specific to a scenario,\u201d says Dr. Adeel Khan, a hematologist-oncologist and epidemiologist who\u2019s an assistant professor of medicine and public health at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. \u201cIt\u2019s general, and there\u2019s a textbook answer.\u201d An explanation about plasma cells\u2019 purpose, for example, doesn\u2019t require any context about individual circumstances; the answer will be the same regardless of your age, gender, and general health condition.<\/p>\n Read More: The 4 Words That Drive Your Doctor Up the Wall<\/a><\/p>\n Khan, who treats a rare form of cancer, has also seen newly diagnosed \u201ctech-savvy patients\u201d ask ChatGPT questions like this: \u201cWhat is myeloma?\u201d \u201cWhat are common side effects of lenalidomide?\u201d And, \u201cWhat can a patient with myeloma expect?”<\/p>\n He prefers this type of usage to seeking personalized medical advice. \u201cFor now, AI should be used to understand medical and treatment facts broadly,\u201d he says. If you do turn to the tool for more individual-based insights, he cautions, use whatever you learn as a supplement to\u2014not replacement for\u2014actual medical care. The information you get from ChatGPT can guide your next conversation with a doctor, he adds, but it shouldn\u2019t be treated as the final word on your condition.<\/p>\n Plug in lots of details<\/p>\n Dr. Colin Banas suggests querying LLMs like this: \u201cI\u2019m a 48-year-old male who\u2019s completed X level of education, and I need to understand what this diagnosis is and what potential treatment options might be.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think that\u2019s entirely fair game because it will give you good answers\u201d in a comprehensible way, says Banas, an internist and chief medical officer of DrFirst, a health care technology company. The more details and context you provide the tool\u2014including your relevant health history or family history of a certain condition\u2014the better equipped it will be to dispense information that\u2019s actually pertinent. But don\u2019t forget:<\/p>\n Be mindful of privacy concerns<\/p>\n Some people have uploaded medical test results\u2014like EKG scans, brain MRIs, and X-rays\u2014or even their entire medical record into a LLM like ChatGPT for a \u201csecond-opinion\u201d-esque analysis. While it can be an interesting exercise that provides fodder for conversations with your doctor, Rodman worries about the privacy implications. \u201cI think everyone needs to know that if you\u2019re putting it into ChatGPT, that data is going straight to OpenAI,\u201d he says. \u201cYou are giving a tech company your personal health information, and that\u2019s probably not a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n Plus, he adds, vision language models\u2014a type of AI designed to understand information based on both image and text input\u2014are not yet as accurate as text-based learning language models. \u201cVision language models are not actually that good at image interpretation themselves,\u201d Rodman says. \u201cThey\u2019re usually exploiting text. If you put an EKG in, it’s mostly reading the text at the top to help interpret it, as well as the other context you’ve given.\u201d While he understands the urge to get a second opinion on potentially confusing results, these tools are \u201creally unreliable,\u201d he says, \u201cand at this point, I’m comfortable definitively saying not to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n Make sure to ask it unbiased questions<\/p>\n As you research, you can take steps to lower the chances of receiving biased information. For example, Khan recently asked ChatGPT why chemotherapy is preferred over immunotherapy for a certain type of cancer. That wording, he says, was intentionally biased: It suggested that chemo was the superior choice, which isn\u2019t necessarily true, and ChatGPT responded accordingly, ticking off chemo\u2019s advantages.\u00a0<\/p>\n A better approach, Khan says, is to ask the tool whether chemotherapy or immunotherapy was preferred, and to explain the pros and cons of each. AI tools \u201caren\u2019t foolproof,\u201d he says. \u201cHow it\u2019s framed makes a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n Let it help you decode medical jargon<\/p>\n AI tools like ChatGPT are \u201creally good<\/a> at breaking down doctor-speak,\u201d Banas says. \u201cDoctors use a lot of advanced terminology and abbreviations\u2014we can’t help it. It’s part of years and years of training, but patients don’t always understand.\u201d If you head home feeling mystified, plug your questions into your favorite AI platform, he recommends.<\/p>\n You might, for example, be stumped by an oncologist’s repeated use of the word \u201cgrade.\u201d Ask ChatGPT what it means, and within seconds, you\u2019ll have a few brief, easy-to-understand paragraphs explaining that grade refers to \u201chow severe, advanced, or abnormal something is when seen under the microscope or assessed clinically\u201d and how it differs from condition to condition.<\/p>\n At the end, you\u2019ll see a message like this from the bot: \u201cWould you like me to also explain how grade differs from stage, since those terms are often confused?\u201d From there, you can continue to follow the prompts until you\u2019re ready to wrap up your impromptu session of medical school.<\/p>\n Use it to prepare for doctor\u2019s appointments<\/p>\n Tools like ChatGPT can help you formulate better questions to take to your doctor. \u201cPatients use it to prepare for their visits ahead of time,\u201d Banas says. \u201cThey\u2019ll say, \u2018Here are my symptoms; what are some questions I should ask my doctor?\u2019 Or, \u2018What are some things my doctor should be thinking of?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n For example, say you input this query into ChatGPT: \u201cI’ve had a headache, nausea, and fatigue for two weeks. What questions should I ask my doctor?\u201d The tool will advise you to seek medical care in a timely manner, and then suggest \u201cfocused questions\u201d that will help you \u201cget the clearest answers,\u201d broken into categories like symptoms, tests, treatment, and next steps. <\/p>\n