Is ChatGPT smarter than a Doctor ?

The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare has raised both eyebrows and expectations. While AI offers promise for automating routine tasks and data analysis, questions about its applicability in nuanced medical practices persist. A recent study presented at the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) Annual Conference 2023 brought these questions into sharp focus. The research revealed that ChatGPT failed the UK's National Primary Care examinations. So, what does this mean for the future of AI in healthcare, particularly in the complex realm of primary care?

Shathar Mahmood and Arun James Thirunavukarasu, two Indian junior doctors from UK, led a team to examine ChatGPT's performance using the Membership of the Royal College of General Practitioners Applied Knowledge Test. This is a part of the UK’s specialty training for becoming a general practitioner (GP). It's a multiple-choice assessment that tests the knowledge required for general practice within the context of the UK's National Health Service (NHS). The algorithm's overall performance was slightly below par, scoring 10% less than the average RCGP pass mark in recent years.

The study highlights the limitations of AI when it comes to making complex medical decisions. Sandip Pramanik, a GP from Watford, noted that the study "clearly showed ChatGPT's struggle to deal with the complexity of the exam questions." In essence, the limitations of ChatGPT lie in its inability to grasp the intricate web of human factors involved in medical decision-making, something that general practitioners are trained extensively to handle. 

Interestingly, the study also found that ChatGPT can generate 'hallucinations,' or novel explanations, which are inaccurate but presented as factual. This is concerning as non-experts would not be able to discern these hallucinations from actual facts. Hence, the risk of misinformation increases, particularly in an age when medical advice is frequently sought online. 

My Concluding Thoughts

So, does AI have a future in healthcare? Certainly. But replacing human clinicians in primary care? Probably not anytime soon. Mahmood succinctly stated that larger and more medically specific datasets are needed to improve AI systems' accuracy in this field. This suggests that while AI has its place in healthcare, that place is not in the replacement of human decision-making complexity and nuance. Instead, it serves as a tool that can assist but not usurp the role of healthcare professionals.

Let's remember, healthcare is not just about data points and binary answers; it’s about understanding the intricate nuances of human emotions, conditions, and complexities, something AI is far from mastering.

-  Krishna Nair

Healing Hands in Danger: The Plight of Violence Against Doctors

Doctors are healers, with hands that mend

But sadly, we face violence in the end

They work hard to cure the sick and frail

But some people's actions are beyond the pale

Doctor’s job is to save lives, to ease the pain

But their efforts are often met with disdain

Assaults on doctors are becoming a trend

A grave injustice that we must attend

The Hippocratic Oath they take to heart

A promise to do their best from the start

But when violence occurs, it breaks them apart

Their passion for healing becomes a lost art

We must protect our doctors, who care for us all

And ensure their safety, so they can answer the call

Violence against them is an affront to us all

Let's stand together and answer the call

For doctors are your guardians, your protectors in need

“You must show us the respect we truly deserve to receive”

Let's unite in this cause, and put an end to this violence

So the doctors can heal and restore our reliance

Had COVID? Part of the Virus May Stick Around in Your Brain

If you or someone you know is experiencing "brain fog" after COVID-19, scientists now have a possible explanation — and it might not bring much comfort.

Researchers in Germany found that part of the virus, the spike protein, remains in the brain long after the virus clears out.

 

These investigators discovered the spike protein from the virus in brain tissue of animals and people after death. The finding suggests these virus fragments build up, stick around, and trigger inflammation that causes long COVID symptoms.

About 15% of COVID patients continue to have long-term effects of the infection despite their recovery, said senior study author Ali Ertürk, PhD, director of the Institute for Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine at the Helmholtz Center Munich in Germany.

 

Reported neurological problems include brain fog, brain tissue loss, a decline in thinking abilities, and problems with memory, he said.

"These symptoms clearly suggest damages and long-term changes caused by SARS-CoV-2 in the brain, the exact molecular mechanisms of which are still poorly understood," Ertürk said.

 

The researchers also propose a way the spike protein can get into the brain in their preprint report published online before peer review April 5 on bioRxiv.

Delivered by circulating blood, the spike protein can stay inside small openings in the bone marrow of the skull called niches. It can also reside in the meninges, thin layers of cells that act as a buffer between the skull and the brain. From there, one theory goes, the spike protein uses channels to enter the brain itself.

The hope is researchers can develop treatments that block one or more steps in this process and help people avoid long COVID brain issues.

 

'Very Concerning'

"This is a very concerning report that literally demonstrates the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in the skull-meninges-brain axis in postmortem individuals," said Eric Topol, MD, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, CA, and editor-in-chief of Medscape, WebMD's sister site for medical professionals.

Having the spike protein accumulate in structures right outside the brain and causing ongoing inflammation makes sense to Topol. The clustering of spike proteins would trigger an immune response from this niche reservoir of immune cells that cause the inflammation associated with long COVID and the symptoms such as brain fog, he said.

 

Problems with thinking and memory after COVID infection are relatively common. One research team found 22% of people with long COVID specifically reported this issue, on average, across 43 published studies. Even people who had mild COVID illness can develop brain fog later, Ertürk and colleagues note.

 

So why are researchers blaming the spike protein and not the whole COVID virus? As part of the study, they found SARS-CoV-2 virus RNA in some people after death and not in others, suggesting the virus does not need to be there to trigger brain fog. They also injected the spike protein directly into the brains of mice and showed it can cause cells to die.

Researchers also found no SARS-CoV-2 virus in the brain parenchyma, the functional tissue in the brain containing nerve cells and non-nerve (called glial) cells, but they did detect the spike protein there.

Surprising Findings

Investigators were surprised to find spike protein in the skull niches of people who survived COVID and died later from another cause. Ertürk, lead author and PhD student Zhouyi Rong, and their colleagues found spike protein in 10 of 34 skulls from people who died from non-COVID causes in 2021 and 2022.

 

They also found COVID can change how proteins act in and around the brain. Some of these proteins are linked to Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease, but have never before been linked to the virus

Another unexpected finding was how close the findings were in mice and humans. There was a "remarkable similarity of distribution of the viral spike protein and dysregulated proteins identified in the mouse and human samples," Ertürk said.

Future Treatments?

Tests for protein changes in the skull or meninges would be invasive but possible compared to sampling the parenchyma inside the brain. Even less invasive would be testing blood samples for altered proteins that could identify people most at risk of developing brain complications after COVID illness.

It will take more brain science to get there. "Designing treatment strategies for these neurological symptoms requires an in-depth knowledge of molecules dysregulated by the virus in the brain tissues," Ertürk said.

55 countries facing serious health worker shortages – World Health Organisation

The World Health Organisation has said that no less than 55 countries are struggling with serious health worker shortages as they continue to seek better-paid opportunities in wealthier nations.

They continue to seek better-paid opportunities in wealthier nations that have stepped up efforts to recruit them amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to WHO, African nations have been worst hit by the phenomenon, with 37 countries on the continent facing health worker shortages.

“Health workers shortage have threatened their chances of achieving universal health care by 2030 – a key Sustainable Development Goals pledge.’’

The actions of wealthy countries that belong to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development come under scrutiny in the WHO alert, among other regions.

“Within Africa, it’s a very vibrant economy that is creating new opportunities,” Dr Jim Campbell, the Director responsible for health worker policy at WHO, said in a statement on Tuesday.

“The Gulf States have traditionally been reliant on international personnel and then some of the OECD high-income countries have really accelerated their recruitment and employment to respond to the pandemic and respond to the loss of lives, the infections, the absences of workers during the pandemic”.

To help countries protect their vulnerable healthcare systems, WHO has issued an updated health workforce support and safeguards list, which highlights nations with low numbers of qualified healthcare staff.

“These countries require priority support for health workforce development and health system strengthening, along with additional safeguards that limit active international recruitment,” the WHO insisted.

Supporting the call for universal healthcare for all countries in line with the SDGs, WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus, called on all countries to respect the provisions in the WHO health workforce support and safeguards list.

“Health workers are the backbone of every health system, and yet 55 countries with some of the world’s most fragile health systems, do not have enough and many are losing their health workers to international migration,” he added.

Although many countries do respect existing WHO guidelines on the recruitment of health care workers, the principle is not accepted wholesale, WHO warned.

“What we are seeing is that the majority of countries are respecting those provisions by not actively recruiting from these (vulnerable) countries,” Campbell said.

“But there is also a private recruitment market that does exist and we’re looking to them to also reach some of the global standards that are anticipated in terms of their practice and behaviour.”

Mechanisms also exist for governments or other individuals to notify WHO if they are “worried” about the behaviour of recruiters, the WHO official said.

The WHO health workforce support and safeguard list does not prohibit international recruitment but recommends that governments involved in such programmes are informed about the impact on the health system in countries where they source qualified health professionals.