“I had an interesting conversation with my doctor,” my neighbor started. His wife chimed in, “And it started because of you.”
I thought, Ah-Oh.
He continued, “We were talking about knee replacement surgery. I told him I’d rather have it done by robotics. He asked me what the advantages were. I told him that it is more precise and less damage to muscles and nerves. He said we do that for intestinal surgery but not for orthopedics. I told him that I have a friend who is a doctor (of course it is you) who told me about doing knee replacement with robotics. The doctor started ignoring me and looking things up on his computer. He spent 10 minutes watching a YouTube video and just saying - Wow. Turns out surgeons around here don’t do it but somebody about an hour away does.”
I’d forgotten. Peter and I had been talking about his options. One night I queried Grok and sent him the article. It gave him his options, including robotic surgery. I’ve read that robots are being compared to surgeons and are able to outperform many. A prediction is that within a couple of years robots will be better than the top surgeons.
No doctor can be on top of everything. I wasn’t able to help Peter because of my training or experience. I helped him by using AI.
You may remember that I had a collapsed lung last April. In a few minutes, Sam, my oldest son, knew more about my options than the hospitalist in charge of my care. He used AI.
I encourage you to become familiar with AI. Don’t accept the results. Ask for references and look up the references.
One problem is querying when you have no knowledge of the subject. It can be difficult to ask the right questions or to know the right follow up questions. If you have no knowledge of a subject, you won’t know if you get a garbage answer.
If you have a retired friend in the field, run it by your friend. Get an expert opinion.
I’m finding AI to be a great tool. I encourage you to use it.