Interesting application. I’ve been that concerned relative on too many occasion, as a son and father. I’m also a veterinary internist with experience in emergency critical care, and I have to say that ChatGPT would have been helpful for me in communicating with the physicians. Like, “Please explain to an extremely busy intensivist what can cause an elderly patient presented for respiratory failure to blow up like a tick, with zero urine output, while on IV fluids.” Answer: Right heart failure secondary to pulmonary hypertension, resulting from chronic, progressive COPD (as found on the CT scan done at my request).

Or, “Explain to an internist who prefers to diagnose via his computer in the office why an elderly man would have sudden back pain, radiographic lucency in a lumbar vertebra, fever, leukocytosis, and a Staph aureus positive blood culture. Explain most likely sources for the infection and diagnostic procedures to confirm.” Yes, a transesophageal echo to look for a vegetative heart valve lesion.

These really happened and I really needed to be the one to gently coax these busy doctors into the right decisions. What I am hearing about ChatGPT in so many applications is that it brings up questions that otherwise were not obvious. That will probably benefit even the sharpest physician, especially in a fast-paced, everything changing constantly emergency.