Source : Perth Now news
At a small pharmacy in regional NSW, the staff have noticed a change in the behaviour of their regular clientele.
More and more, locals are walking in the front doors of Blooms The Chemist in Mudgee and asking pharmacy workers whether diagnoses they have received from AI chat bots are legitimate.
Pharmacy owner Laura Rheinberger told NewsWire the most common queries came from concerned parents of young children and people struggling with their sleep.
“We are increasingly seeing people come into the pharmacy after researching their symptoms online or using AI to find out more about how they’re feeling and what that could mean,” Ms Rheinberger said.
“Someone might come into the pharmacy after using AI to try to understand why their child is experiencing a particular symptom, or what might be causing a sleep issue.”
Ms Rheinberger confessed even as a qualified pharmacist, she too has consulted AI chat bots on how to best console her newborn while trying to calm her crying child down in the middle of the night.
“Sleep issues in particular can have different causes, from day-to-day stresses all the way to more complex issues like obstructive sleep apnoea,” she said.
“This is where having a healthcare professional talk through these concerns can be important, particularly when the case isn’t straightforward.
“AI cannot see, listen, touch or feel a patient to gather more information. It cannot order blood tests or conduct imaging. Those important tasks can only be done in person by a healthcare professional.”
Pharmacists aren’t the only medical experts dealing with an inundation of clients adamant their chat bot knows best.
General practitioners are also having interactions with patients who seem to have done their research using AI.
Queensland-based GP Sidd Sarmah said the world of algorithms, shortened attention spans and a greater urgency for information had created an environment where people looked for “sugar hits” in their everyday life.
“What we look for is convenience, that’s what I mean by sugar hits. Anything that’s convenient for the patient, they reach out for,” Dr Sarmah said.
“Sometimes that can be advantageous, and sometimes it can mean even bigger problems down the line.”
“Artificial Intelligence runs on pattern recognition, and while there are patterns in medicine, there can also be variations.
“That’s the beauty of the human body, it isn’t a code to be understood or interpreted in a particular way.”
Dr Sarmah said his practice had seen an increasing amount of people stepping through the door having already attempted to educate themselves on their condition through the use of AI.
“While that in and of itself is not a bad thing – we always encourage people to question what is happening in their bodies and their health – there are still a number of cons,” he said.
“The dangers of bypassing a general practitioner or family doctor and trying to interpret the information handed to you through an algorithm can be quite significant.
“Are they going to be falsely assured that the lump in their neck is nothing but a gland caught in a viral infection? Or is there actually something more sinister going on which could have been picked up by a GP?”
Dr Sarmah recalled one instance where a man aged in his 30s scheduled an appointment to try to understand why he was experiencing a nasty bout of diarrhoea.
Through consultation with AI, the man assumed he had contracted some kind of stomach bug through his work, which involved a lot of overseas travel.
“He travelled quite a lot with his job, and he had been taking over-the-counter anti-diarrhoea medications. He felt that this was going on a bit too long, and we looked at his past records and he didn’t have any issues with bowel problems,” Dr Sarmah said.
The man had visibly lost weight, which he assumed was because he hadn’t been eating properly.
“We ran some basic tests on him, found him to be anaemic, and long story short, he was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease,” Dr Sarmah said.
“It’s a classic example of ongoing diarrhoea, which could be put down to gastro by artificial intelligence, actually being something much more serious.”
Dr Sarmah said the ever-developing world of AI was “uncharted territory,” but ultimately, what sets medical experts apart is the element of trust.
“This is uncharted territory. We need to be mindful when we go down this road, because we don’t know where we’re going to end up,” he said.
“One thing is for sure, and that is that general practitioners will remain at the centre of a patient’s healthcare.
“Wherever the information comes from, whatever the source, we are still the most well-equipped people to interpret that data in the context of a patients needs.”
