The Pitt has a sharp take on AI

every episode of hbo the pit There’s a degree of medical trauma that makes the hospital drama feel almost like a horror series. Some patients are battling serious wounds while others are fighting terrible blood infections that could take away their organs, and the chaos of working in an emergency room is often overwhelming. the pitThe central characters were shaken. But many people are just as worried the pitWhile there may be more sad moments, what’s even more troubling is the show’s slow-burn subplot about hospitals’ adoption of generic artificial intelligence.

In its second season, the pit Once again details all the events that happened during a 15-hour day shift in the emergency room of the University of Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center. Season two takes place on the Fourth of July – one of the busiest days for hospitals – as senior attending physician Dr. Michael “Robbie” Robinovitch (Noah Wyle) is working one last shift before taking a much-needed sabbatical. With Dr. Robbie scheduled to be away for three months, the hospital brings in Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moaafi) to help lead the emergency room while he is away. There is some personality-based friction among the attendees, but Dr. Roby mostly respects how Dr. al-Hashimi conducts her work except That’s when she emphasizes that the hospital would be better off if it committed to using AI-powered transcription software.

Although the season starts off relatively calm, the day turns stressful for everyone the pitAs the hospital fills with people needing medical care, eligible for. Staying on top of her work is especially difficult for second-year resident Dr. Trinity Santos (Isa Briones) because she doesn’t have enough time to see all of her patients and carefully note all of their symptoms in their medical charts.

Dr. Al-Hashimi knows AI-generated transcripts aren’t perfect, but she sees Dr. Santos as a perfect example of a doctor who can complete his charting faster with the help of technology. To Fantasy Software’s credit, it does Transcribe most of Dr. Santos’s dictations accurately. But both doctors are stunned when a surgeon storms into the ER in anger after receiving charts containing extremely blatant, glaring errors that may have caused patients to receive the wrong care.

Instead of diving headfirst into the headline-grabbing “Generative AI is bad and dangerous” conspiracy theories, the pit We have taken our time to explore the reasons why medical professionals want to use this type of technology and the importance of viewing it with some skepticism. Dr. Al-Hashimi encourages her medical students and residents to use transcription software, but she is also diligent about cautioning them that they need to double-check any work they complete with AI because they — not their devices — are responsible for treating patients. Here’s how each of Dr. al-Hashimi’s warnings unfolds the pit Acknowledging real-world examples of patients suing hospitals over botched surgeries involving the use of AI tools and studies that have found large language models to be unreliable in their ability to accurately predict patient health outcomes. the pit Dr. Al-Hashimi’s AI boosterism is also used to explain that the adoption of technology in professional settings may actually lead to greater engagement (see: Double-checking the transcript) while contributing to people’s burnout. Initially, Dr. Al-Hashimi seems like she could be a major rival presence this season, but the pitThe writing team has very cleverly chosen to focus on one big idea.

in this season the pit It is repeatedly emphasized that technology can only do so much to solve problems, when it is not actually designed to solve the real problem. AI-powered transcription can help Dr. Santos complete charts more quickly (with a few errors thrown in for good measure). But the software can’t do much about emergency room staffing shortages, or when doctors and nurses are suddenly tasked with taking on more patients after another hospital goes into lockdown.

The way characters like Dr. Santos and nurses like Dana Evans (Katherine LaNasa) find themselves overloaded with patients, spending hours in packed waiting rooms, feels like a direct reflection of the real-world challenges faced by hospitals across the country. To really get control of your workload, the pitWhat the ER staff really needs is a more practical deck and more space to provide proper care to patients. But with the country facing a nursing shortage and the fictional hospital being chronically underfunded, it tracks that administrators would like to try to increase productivity using AI.

the pit It could easily (and may even happen before the season is over) tell a story about how errors caused by the use of general AI lead to mistakes in the operating room that could leave medical professionals open to lawsuits. But the show is right in highlighting the reality that there are some significant issues in the workplace that can’t be fixed by just throwing in new kinds of technology.



<a href

Leave a Comment