Halifax, NS – Looking to take advantage of AI in his practice, Dr. Allan George turned to ChatGPT for novel ways to tell female patients “It’s all in your head.”
Dr. George, a rheumatologist with over 20 years of experience, has found himself at a crossroads when his typical “it’s all your head” speech hasn’t been landing with his female patient base. After learning that large language models were going to revolutionize medicine, he thought he’d test them with his most overused phrase that applied to 98% of the cases he sees.
“Medicine needs the personal touch,” explained Dr. George while he adjusted his glasses. “Lady patients want to see a human doctor who is empathetic and really listens, not some chatbot. So, I need unique phrases that highlight my compassion and the fact that I don’t believe them.”
In a matter of seconds, ChatGPT provided enough variation on phrases that patients outlining their experience on RateMyMD wouldn’t be able to detect that they were essentially told the same thing. The phrases it provided were:
“Your symptoms are manifestations of psychological factors”
“It’s worth noting you should focus on real problems”
“This unveils the intricate relationship between your brain and your imagination.”
“You’ve reached your daily usage of ChatGPT, please sign up for pro.”
Patients had mixed reactions to Dr. George’s new approach. “As per usual, I went in with high expectations that a medical professional might finally take me seriously,” said Amanda Cassels who has been struggling to find a doctor who would take an X-Ray and then put a cast on her broken arm , “Right now, I’m not sure if he plans to help me, if I need to see a therapist, or I really should invest $20 USD a month for pro?”
Other medical professionals are scrambling to adopt AI-driven communication strategies in their practices. The head of the Medical Board of Ontario, Dr. Allison Fenty, wants all doctors to integrate it into their practices. “Doctors don’t always know the right thing to say,” complained Dr. Fenty. “But if they could just auto-generate a script that sounds empathetic and helpful, they could sound less like unfeeling robots and more like people who care.”
As for ChatGPT, a source close to the AI suggests it’s already training on a new data set to offer doctors variations on the phrase: you shouldn’t have stuck this up your butt.
