25 - Salt Water

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 forefront in 2023, but we've been discussing this for over 50 years. In this ep ...  Show more

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 abdomen? This dilemma was the impetus to build the first truly effective clinical dec ...  Show more

Ancient cultures all over the world used the pulse as a diagnostic tool. And eventually, we figured out how to measure blood pressure, and hypertension came to be viewed as a disease.

Research:

Contributor: Chris Holmes, MD

Educational Pearls:

“Getting people better doesn't come from scientific papers. It's about creating actionable information.”Rangan Chatterjee MD The developed world is mired in a cataclysmic epidemic of chronic lifestyle illness. Heart disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, depression and de ...  Show more

The American Civil War saw a transformation in medical provision on the battlefield. A loose grouping of medical practitioners was reshaped into a burgeoning, professionalised occupation. How did the medical profession rise to the challenge of treating thousands of wounded sol ...