Over the weekend, I was emailed the link to the article: “The Role of Doctors Is Changing Forever”, written by Dr. Dhruv Khullar. After reading it, I paused to reflect on not only my own career, but on the healthcare system as a whole.
To summarize the article:
Dr. Khullar argues that the traditional role of doctors is undergoing a profound transformation as medical authority is challenged by technology, culture, and broader societal change. With a new healthcare landscape, doctors no longer hold exclusive authority over diagnosis and treatments. Rather, more and more patients now turn first to AI tools, social media, and wellness gurus for their care. From Tik Tok to ChatGPT, people are seeking answers outside of the four walls of medical offices.
He illustrates this shift with the story of “Jim,” (not the patient’s real name) who avoided the traditional health-care system entirely, relying first on wellness recommendations from our government and AI before ending up in an emergency room with a serious medical condition. Even upon entering the hospital, he had already received a diagnosis from ChatGPT. That would have been unthinkable only a decade ago.
How this relates to me:
The article made me think of a patient I recently treated, a retired physician who had a suspected hernia diagnosed via imaging.
Two weeks earlier he had suffered a heart attack and, thankfully, was doing well. Shortly after being discharged, he called our office to schedule a hernia consultation, in part because I had just treated his brother. During his visit, I confirmed that he did not, in fact, have a hernia, despite what he had been told elsewhere.
What stayed with me most, however, was not the hernia related conversations.