What does it mean when a computer can make better medical decisions than a human? The progress in large language models, and in particular the popularity of ChatGPT, has brought these questions to the

What happens when a patient far from surgical care say, at the bottom of the Pacific ocean on a submarine, or at a research base in Antarctica in the middle of the winter develops a surgical abdom

American doctors spend the majority of their time during the day on the computer, either writing or reading notes about their patients; only a small fraction is spent with the human beings in their ca

In the past episode, cultural and medical historians Lakshmi Krishnan and Mike Neuss discussed the history of the actual work of the doctor Holmesian detective, data entry clerk, or something else a

What do doctors actually do? Are they Sherlockian detectives, hunting down obscure clues to solve intractable cases? Are they virtuosic experts, training for half a lifetime to bring the latest scienc

How do doctors actually think? And if we can answer that, can we train a computer to do a better job? In the post-WW2 period, a group of iconoclastic physicians set about to redefine the nature and st

Internal medicine physicians like to pride ourselves on our clinical reasoning the ability to talk to any patient, pluck out seemingly random bits of information, and make a mystery diagnosis. But h

Modern plastic surgery was born out of the horrors of trench warfare in World War I. In this episode, Adam interviews historian Lindsey Fitzharris about her new book The Facemaker, about the life of s

In the early 19th century, a strange new illness, seemingly unknown to medicine, ravaged settler communities in the American Middle West. As fierce debates about this new disease, now called milk sick

Burnout seems to stalk healthcare workers; between a third and a half of doctors and nurses had symptoms of burnout BEFORE the COVID-19 pandemic. Major medical associations have recognized burnout as