November 18, 2024
(The Conversation) – Halassy is a success story of self-experimentation in medicine. She joins other examples, like Barry Marshall, who won the 2005 Noble prize in medicine following his work ingesting the Helicobacter bacterium to prove its role in gastritis … Read More
November 15, 2024
(MIT Technology Review) – Women are also often subjected to medical advice designed to protect a potential fetus, whether they are pregnant or not. Official guidelines on how much mercury-containing fish it is safe to eat can be different for … Read More
November 8, 2024
(The Conversation) – The argument across these different domains is essentially the same: The time for AI skepticism has come and gone. The technology will shape the future, whether you like it or not. You have the choice to learn … Read More
November 8, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – Technologists say chatbots are a remedy for the loneliness epidemic, but looking to an algorithm for companionship can be dangerous. As researchers who have spent years studying the relationships that ever more people are forming with … Read More
November 5, 2024
(Undark) – Experiencing a severe side effect is rare, but officially documenting such cases is vital to designing better vaccines. I wrote about the experience in 2021 in The Boston Globe, after the FDA attached a warning to the J&J shot, citing an … Read More
November 1, 2024
(Aeon) – For all the promise and dangers of AI, computers plainly can’t think. To think is to resist – something no machine does But there is another origin of our impulse to concede mind to devices of our own … Read More
October 21, 2024
(Aeon) – While Chalmers’s p-zombie is a part of a philosophical hypothetical concerned with the nature of mind and consciousness, the non-philosophical take on people as NPCs is deeply morally worrying. Having taught and written for a number of years … Read More
October 18, 2024
(MedPage Today) – Last month, California passed a bill ensuring that doctors, not artificial intelligence (AI), have the final say on patients’ treatments and services. The bill, SB1120, allows insurance companies to use AI to review doctors’ recommendations for medical … Read More
October 17, 2024
(Fast Company) – During Helene and Milton, the AI tool I used most—AI RI—was developed by researchers at the University of Wisconsin. It gives updated hourly odds on the chances of a nascent hurricane going through a bout of rapid … Read More
October 16, 2024
(The Conversation) – In 2014, the World Health Organisation highlighted the need to include palliative care in health policies and to improve access to essential medicines such as morphine. It also stressed the importance of training health professionals in palliative … Read More
October 9, 2024
(New York Times) – I’m in the writers’ room helping to draft the script for a new television medical drama, and we’ve hit a roadblock in the fourth act. We’ve successfully set up the mystery and designed a clever way … Read More
October 7, 2024
(The Atlantic) – As a palliative-care physician, I have encountered the phenomenon of people dying only after specific circumstances materialize. There was the gentleman whose family held vigil in the intensive-care unit while he continued on, improbably, even without the … Read More
October 7, 2024
(New York Times) – These new tools excel at medicine’s technical side — I’ve seen them diagnose complex diseases and offer elegant, evidence-based treatment plans. But they’re also great at bedside communication, crafting language that convinces listeners that a real, … Read More
October 7, 2024
(New York Times) – After I spent more than 50 years chasing and fighting viruses, one fought back and nearly took me down. I speak of the West Nile virus, delivered by the deadliest animal on the planet: the mosquito. … Read More
October 3, 2024
(The Times Weekly) – Since our health care system does not treat everyone equally, the practice of physician – assisted suicide raises the risk for those who often do not get the same access and treatment as others. This includes … Read More
September 26, 2024
(Undark) – If artificial intelligence-created content floods the internet, who decides what online information is worth archiving? The internet is about to become deluged with a mass of low-effort, AI-generated content, potentially drowning out human work. This oncoming wave poses … Read More
September 25, 2024
(The Conversation) – In a 2023 survey of more than 1,000 U.S. medical students, about 58% of respondents said they received no formal nutrition education while in medical school for four years. Those who did averaged about three hours of … Read More
September 18, 2024
(Plough) – If only her parents had been spared the terrible freedom of having to choose whether to have a child with a disability. “My husband and I decided that it was a loving decision not to bring her into … Read More
September 18, 2024
(New York Times) – So what does Gen Z really think about social media? Is it more like walkie-talkies, where hardly anyone wished they had never been invented? Or is it more like cigarettes, where smokers often say they enjoy … Read More
September 16, 2024
(Wired) – I’m a gun-owning emergency physician, a father, and the cousin of a man who was shot to death. If it wasn’t for the National Rifle Association declaring in 2018 that physicians, like me, should “stay in their lane” … Read More
September 13, 2024
(Romper) – Fertility, pregnancy, birth — they’re medical, yes, but they’re also something more. I realized that I had miscategorized this adventure in my head. I had not thought of egg freezing as a fertility treatment. In fact, I had … Read More
September 11, 2024
(STAT News) – A single question doesn’t give context, ask what’s most important to you to guide this decision, or share why we may recommend do-not-resuscitate (DNR) when CPR likely won’t work and cause further suffering. Popular shows like “Grey’s … Read More
September 10, 2024
(Nature) – Questions surrounding an often-repeated statistic about Indigenous Peoples and biodiversity show that researchers should take more care when sourcing facts. For at least two decades, scientists, policymakers and journals, including Nature, have cited a statistic without determining its … Read More
September 9, 2024
(New York Times) – A generation ago, bioethicists fought over whether assisted reproductive technology would be normalized or made taboo. Now there’s strong public consensus that it should be not only tolerated but also celebrated. But this may be a … Read More
September 3, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – Assisted suicide was sold as compassionate. In practice it has turned out to be monstrous. The new law dropped safeguards, such as the minimum 10-day assessment period between request and provision. It also proposed mental illness … Read More
