Listen—A podcast interview with Nicholas Jacobson, an associate professor of biomedical data science and psychiatry, discusses his leading of the first clinical trial of a fully generative AI therapy chatbot, thoughtful regulation of AI in mental health, and closing the gap between the need for mental health care and the shortage of providers.

Read article—Nicholas Jacobson, an associate professor of biomedical data science and psychiatry, writes about the potential of Therabot, a generative AI therapy chatbot developed in his lab, and clinically developed AI-assisted therapy in general, to expand access to psychotherapy with personalized, evidence-based care at scale. “We expect that this intervention could lead to a regime change in the field,” Jacobson writes.

Read article—A Dartmouth study found that physicians may spend more time editing AI-drafted responses to patients than it would take to write them because of errors, irrelevant information, and a lack of key follow-up questions. The team created a training method that improved AI’s accuracy by 33% and reduced editing by 26%. “I don’t foresee a time when the portal can respond to a patient without a clinician editing it first,” said Tim Burdick, an associate professor of community and family medicine. (Similar coverage in Noah Intelligence. )

Read article—Sarah Preum, an assistant professor of computer science, and Tim Burdick, an associate professor of community and family medicine, discuss Dartmouth research finding that AI-generated patient portal messages often require substantial physician editing. “You don’t want to integrate large language models into the workflow and just shift the bottleneck so that doctors are devoting their cognitive energy to playing AI janitor and fixing mistakes,” Preum said. (Similar coverage in TechTarget.)

Read article—Steven Woloshin, a professor of health policy and clinical practice, is quoted in a story about the number of people who get screened for lung cancer being far below the number that are eligible. “If the public health goal is to reduce deaths from lung cancer through screening, it only works if you treat the people it identifies,” Woloshin said.

Read article—Martin Gross, an associate professor of surgery, says there is no evidence that icing the testicles improves testosterone or sperm production. Gross shared that healthy habits such as exercise, sleep, weight management, and avoiding smoking and excessive alcohol are far more effective ways to support men’s reproductive health.

Listen—Ilana Cass, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology discusses the increasing closures of labor and delivery units at rural hospitals, and measures to expand the reach of existing resources.  “We really have to take a beat and think, how can we expand the workforce of individuals who want to provide obstetrics care in rural locations so we don’t find ourselves looking at this map with more X’s than circles of open units,” Cass said. Starts around 21:55.

Listen to Podcast—Philip Goodney, a professor of surgery, is highlighted in a podcast about improving access to care for patients with peripheral arterial disease. Vascular surgeon Devin Zarkowsky credits Goodney’s research mapping underserved areas with high amputation rates for shaping his decision to establish a practice in an underserved part of San Diego County.

Read article—Kathleen Clem, a professor of emergency medicine, is featured in a story about a dramatic increase in cases of cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome caused by frequent use of more potent forms of cannabis. “This is not your parents’ weed,” Clem said. “It’s been really amped up and much stronger in potency, and you don’t necessarily know what you’re getting.”