Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from May, 2020

The Patient Who Asked Too Many Questions: How AI Is Changing the Conversation in Medicine

HEALTHCARE · ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE · PATIENT EXPERIENCE Years ago, at a government hospital, I heard a surgeon say about a patient who kept asking him, "She must be a teacher." He was half-joking. She turned out to be one. It became my private joke: anyone who asks that many questions must be a teacher. I didn't know I'd think of that remark again. I think of it now because the patient who asks too many questions is no longer rare. She is in my family. Perhaps you have encountered her, too.   A new kind of conversation My mother, my uncles, and my aunts are not medical professionals. When an unfamiliar symptom appears, they don't know the terminology, the likely causes, or the right questions to ask. But they have found ChatGPT and Gemini, and they talk to them like buddies. A symptom prompts a question, an answer prompts another, and nobody waits. Voice input matters most. They don't have to type a carefully worded query or know the medical term. They speak...
Post a Comment
Read more

TOO MANY COOKS SPOIL THE BROTH

  A t no time did I comprehend this old saying could be so exceptionally appropriate for all of us? For a very long time, Queen Mother ruled the roost from the dining table. She would sit there and indiscriminately pursue her instructions, the amount of water I added, the flavor of the ingredients, the position of the pan over the flame, and so on. I barely got a break till I decided to end all this and shifted her throne to the side where she could not see what I was doing.   With a badly bruised ego and the hurt of being deposed, she continued to grumble and fumble and stepped down reluctantly.  Working from home introduced a new cook in our dwelling, my son. All this while he stayed in another city, and we continued to praise his newly found culinary skills through WhatsApp.    This WhatsApp is not a 3D app that shows us the food beautifully presented, while the rest of the kitchen does not matter. I was scandalized when ‘besan ka chila’ was being prepared. ...
2 comments
Read more

LOCKDOWN TO DO LIST

                                                               It was an overwhelming  awareness and we had by now begun to accept the fact that we had to learn to live with the deadly Coronavirus and its aftermath. Every day, in lock down was a nightmare, if not for most but for many. I seemed to have been the chosen one since I did not share the sentiment. To avoid the chaos of multiple pages and a digital document that requires endless scrolling,I wrote my to do list on a sheet of paper and photographed it.I overlooked the method over usefulness.It was to be my guiding mantra to live by peacefully in such unusual and extraordinary times.  A self-employed me had enough at hands than to think of spawning more, I looked callously at all those on social websites that  hungered to learn and teach .On one hand they to...
Post a Comment
Read more

NETFLIX EFFECT

This is from an addicted fan, cornered for being a rebellion and imitating the many on our idiot box, I had few options but to give up whatever little interest I had in family soap operas. This  flaw forced me to explore beyond my realms, History, Engineering marvels, Discovery, News. That was not binging! I missed the spice, a pinch of salt, spoonful of chilies and black pepper. I hunted with relentless determination inching my toes to the edge. I found my niche. There was an absence of makeup, eyes were fiery red and there were surges of adrenaline and a battle with sedatives. I liked this new taste and flavor of chipotle. It was like a burrito different from our rajma chawal, it was hot. I realized a little late this certainly was madness breeding madness. I switched off those debates and my television forever. My entertainment underwent a colossal hit. Advent of technology had transformed my mother and sister in law into movie buffs which they watched over YouTube and H...
1 comment
Read more