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...
As a student I had to commute in local buses as prevalent during those times. My wait for the arrival of the next bus forced me to notice an old lady curiously observing me. I pretended to ignore her but still found myself to be a subject of her curiosity. Undeterred she stared, unabashed I turned my back towards her, only to find her blatantly changing sides to face me again. Realizing my awkwardness in avoiding her she questioned me about my grandparents and excitedly mentioned my mother’s name to confirm my filial descent. She then introduced herself as an old neighbour of my grandparents who had seen my mother as a teenager and my resemblance to her. Thank God! I whispered as I took a seat and bade a farewell to my new acquaintance. Genetics and not Facebook turned out to be the most potent tool in uniting the long-lost, figures in my mind. As I was having my morning walk session, I could see groups of people performing yoga and yet another group indulged in a discourse on a...