Artificial Intelligence
Human Oversight and Conscience in Healthcare AI
Healthcare has long understood that safety depends on process, not perfection. Checklists, timeouts, and structured handoffs exist to prevent the predictable human errors that arise in complex environments. These principles—refined through aviation safety models and...
Governance Over Fear: Building Safe, Transparent Healthcare AI
When new ideas challenge long-held medical beliefs, fear often delays progress. In the 1980s, researchers Barry Marshall and Robin Warren were ridiculed for suggesting that a bacterium, Helicobacter pylori, caused most ulcers. Years passed before the medical community...
Adoption Curves: Managing Change in Healthcare AI
Change has always been uncomfortable. Clinicians trained for decades to master their craft often find new technologies disruptive, slowing down well-established routines. Patients, too, hesitate when asked to manage their health differently, even when change promises...
Building the AI Social Contract
The idea of a “social contract” is as old as political philosophy itself. Thinkers from Hobbes to Rousseau argued that individuals willingly surrender some autonomy to governing bodies in exchange for protection and order. The contract legitimizes authority by...
Trust in Healthcare AI: Lessons for Leaders
Healthcare has always struggled to balance innovation with trust. In the early 1990s, as personal computers became affordable and the Internet became widespread in hospitals, electronic health records (EHRs) promised a revolution. Paper records were hard to access,...
Who Should Lead AI in Healthcare?
This summer, I explored how artificial intelligence is reshaping healthcare—and why its most significant potential will remain untapped unless we change not only how we use it, but who leads its deployment. AI is no longer theoretical. It is here, embedded in...
AI Must Augment Clinical Judgment, Not Replace It
In aviation, the path to safety was paved not by better engines but by better communication. In the aftermath of several deadly airline accidents in the 1970s, the problem was not mechanical—it was human. Pilots and crew failed to speak up, share critical...
Debunking 5 Common Myths About Healthcare AI
Despite the breathless headlines and lofty promises, artificial intelligence in healthcare is not a magic bullet. It is not sentient, intuitive, or even particularly wise. It is a tool—and like any tool, its effectiveness depends entirely on how it is designed,...
Why I Ride: 41 Years for Cancer Research
On August 2–3, I will once again ride 192 miles across Massachusetts in the Pan-Mass Challenge (PMC), an extraordinary event that raises critical funds for cancer research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. This year marks my 41st consecutive PMC ride.It also marks...