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...
I developed a taste for words a little late. That happened only after faring poorly in the language and working on myself that I became an avid reader. We had preferences, so we amassed volumes in our homes. Some were those we had borrowed, the ones we forgot to return, others were second-hand or the new edition we either purchased or were gifted, and a few were even our professional textbooks. The pages had begun to crack, and a distinct moldy smell emanated. The once treasured books now occupied only space, and their regular maintenance was a menace. After my father passed away, my mother offloaded our home from the clutter, and first in line of fire were the books. Those prized possessions came down from the first-floor balcony onto the floor. An unassuming raddiwallah collected our priceless belongings of years in his sack for a paltry amount. My friend shared, advertising on Facebook, the free sale of her Encyclopedia Britannica after she became an empty nester. The story was...