{"id":116492,"date":"2025-07-30T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.freethink.com\/?post_type=ftm_article&p=116492"},"modified":"2025-07-29T17:59:29","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T21:59:29","slug":"chatgpt-healthcare","status":"publish","type":"ftm_article","link":"https:\/\/www.freethink.com\/artificial-intelligence\/chatgpt-healthcare","title":{"rendered":"Second opinions in the age of ChatGPT"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

ChatGPT saved a woman\u2019s life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the gist of a viral post<\/a> shared on Reddit. The author said his wife developed a fever and felt ill after a seemingly routine cyst removal. Her doctor had said the cyst wasn\u2019t infected, so she wanted to wait it out, but ChatGPT urged them to go to the emergency room immediately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The AI\u2019s advice was sound: The woman was septic, and had the couple waited to seek medical attention, she could have gotten much sicker. Instead, she was \u201cstable and doing fine,\u201d according to the Redditor, who concluded his post by noting that his $20 ChatGPT subscription was money well spent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is just an anecdote (and an unverified one at that), but it\u2019s emblematic of a much larger trend in the world of healthcare: An estimated 20%<\/a> of Americans turned to large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok, for answers to medical questions in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But can a chatbot really help anyone with their health?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paging Dr. Google<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Tapping into tech resources for health advice is nothing new. In the early 2000s, the creation of WebMD meant anyone with an internet connection could type their symptoms into a text box and receive a list of what might be wrong with them, ranked from most to least likely. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than two decades later, people regularly consult Dr. Google before their own doctors \u2014 WebMD, Healthline, and sites like them are among the most trafficked<\/a> on the entire internet. But whether these searches are actually improving healthcare is debatable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While online symptom checkers can alert people to possible health issues, which they can then follow up on with their doctors, their accuracy is low. A 2015 analysis<\/a> of 23 of the platforms determined that they listed the correct diagnosis for a query first just 34% of the time. The correct diagnosis appeared within the top 20 results just 58% of the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For people already prone to anxiety, these platforms can actually induce stress by suggesting they have a serious health issue, even if the risk is low. Following the development of online symptom checkers, \u201ccyberchondria<\/a>\u201d spread across the developed world like an infectious disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“AI systems are capable of far more than the previous generation of symptom checkers.”<\/p>Adam Rodman<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s against this backdrop that LLMs enter the picture. Unlike symptom checkers, these tools can engage in dialogue, synthesize complex medical histories, and offer contextualized responses. And according to Adam Rodman<\/a>, an internal medicine physician and director of AI programs at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, they\u2019re a major cut above their predecessors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe big difference between WebMD \u2014 which was a very basic symptom checker at the time \u2014 and LLMs is that LLMs are really, really good,\u201d said Rodman, who is also an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. “WebMD had relatively simple pattern matching, but these AI systems are capable of far more than the previous generation of symptom checkers. They are often right.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The research backs this up: A 2025 meta-analysis of 83 studies<\/a> found that generative AIs have an overall diagnostic accuracy of about 52%. That\u2019s equivalent to the accuracy of physicians, as determined by those same studies, and significantly higher than the 34% of symptom checkers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using LLMs wisely<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

With patients already using LLMs, it\u2019s clear they are going to be a part of the healthcare ecosystem, at least for now. The question then turns to how <\/em>people should use them, and the Reddit poster may have the right idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asking an LLM for a second opinion after first consulting a doctor \u2014 ideally, one who specializes in whatever might ail you \u2014 is a powerful use case, and there are ways to maximize the likelihood you get a useful response, according to Rodman. The trick, he said, is in getting the AI to consider the important information, without leading it to any conclusions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy advice for people trying to get a second opinion would be to give as much context as possible,\u201d said Rodman. \u201cMake it clear that you want to know what else it could be, and then try to give as much objective data as possible…You may not want to provide the assessment in your doctor’s notes because that’s going to perhaps sway it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

“AI changed my patient journey 100%.”<\/p>\nAnonymous cancer patient<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The internet is rife with examples like the sepsis one that started this article, where a person sought a second opinion from an LLM, and it spotted something serious that a human doctor missed. A person who posted online that ChatGPT helped him through his prostate cancer diagnosis agreed to speak with Freethink on the condition of anonymity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAI changed my patient journey 100%,\u201d he said. \u201cI was relying on a local surgeon\u2019s opinion, who was negating some viable other treatments. [ChatGPT] suggested balancing his opinion with that of a radiation oncologist.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The AI directed him to a highly regarded cancer center, where he met with experts who have been treating him since. \u201cChatGPT actually relieved a lot of anxiety for me by providing information and a balanced approach,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ll be honest, I\u2019m pretty damn grateful I had that tool to help me, and it\u2019s still helping me decide what kind of treatments to pursue.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Using LLMs to help explain what your healthcare team is thinking…is the killer use for the app.”<\/p>Adam Rodman<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Even if an LLM doesn\u2019t catch something major that a doctor missed, it can provide a patient with peace of mind that their physician is likely on the right track. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because their responses are written in conversational language, the tools can help patients better understand their health, too. A person could feed an LLM their medical records, for example, and ask it to summarize the information in an easily digestible way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Using LLMs to help explain what your healthcare team is thinking, especially when it’s really nuanced, to me, is the killer use for the app,” said Rodman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Risks, realities, and the road forward<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

LLMs may be useful for patients, but they have drawbacks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

People who consult LLMs for health advice and get wrong answers likely don\u2019t post about their experiences as often as people who benefited from the AIs. This can skew the public\u2019s perception of their accuracy \u2014 if every post you see online about consulting an LLM says the AI was right, you may start to think LLMs are always<\/em> right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This can lead to conflict with medical professionals, especially if a patient consults an LLM for their first opinion on an ailment \u2014 they might get stuck on the AI\u2019s diagnosis despite their doctors thinking it\u2019s unlikely. The fact that AIs\u2019 responses are so confident and affirming, while doctors are sometimes short, cold, or distracted, can exacerbate this problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think that now, just to say it explicitly, there is a challenge to doctor authority,\u201d said Rodman. \u201cLLMs are sycophantic. They can make patients confident while being more wrong about [their condition] than WebMD ever could. So when they\u2019re wrong, it\u2019s more challenging.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, if patients can maintain realistic expectations about what LLMs can and cannot do, the tools could improve healthcare for millions and, in notable cases, like the woman with sepsis, maybe even help save lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019d love to hear from you! If you have a comment about this article or if you have a tip for a future Freethink story, please email us at tips@freethink.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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