# Helping patients to use AI wisely

**URL:** <https://discourse.datamethods.org/t/helping-patients-to-use-ai-wisely/28876>\
**Category:** education\
**Created:** [September 30, 2026, 11:38am UTC](https://discourse.datamethods.org/t/helping-patients-to-use-ai-wisely/28876 "2026-09-30T11:38:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![karlamoPA](https://discourse.datamethods.org/user_avatar/discourse.datamethods.org/karlamopa/32/1276_2.png) [@karlamoPA](https://discourse.datamethods.org/u/karlamoPA)\
**Post date:** [September 30, 2026, 11:38am UTC](https://discourse.datamethods.org/t/helping-patients-to-use-ai-wisely/28876/1 "2026-09-30T11:38:30Z")

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Here’s what I have so far, related to your advice:

### _ **Common Mistakes We Make when Using AI** _

_Doctors report uses of AI that can create anxiety in patients that actually make our consults more difficult._

1. _ **When we ask valid questions the wrong way** _

2. _ **Insufficient background provided for a reliable diagnosis** :_

**Greetings, Given the concerns raised by doctors on this forum regarding how patient use of AI is making the practice of medicine more challenging, I have drafted (with the help of AI) a set of guidelines for patients.**

**I hope this post is appropriate for this forum. If you find these guidelines helpful, please feel free to adapt them as a handout for your patients or post them on your patient portals.**

How #ai Can Help Patients

The Good: How AI Can Help You  
The Risks: What AI Cannot Do

How to Ask AI Good Questions  
How to Check AI Replies: Levels of Evidence

Strong Evidence | Weak Evidence – not real evidence at all

Widely-Believed Myths  
About the Author

> **[How AI Can Help Patients](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1U_ViVJuTYM_CzTLytg4OZGp_mLxRYbs91V5f2yZb_FM/preview?usp=drive_link&sle=true&pru=AAABoRYjMtc*JWD9SDefHmqjWIbOYbugAw)**
>
> How AI Can Help Patients The Good: How AI Can Help You | The Risks: What AI Cannot Do How to Ask AI Good Questions | How to Check AI Replies: Levels of Evidence Strong Evidence | Weak Evidence – not real evidence at all Widely-Believed Myths | ...

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**Author:** ![ESMD](https://discourse.datamethods.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@ESMD](https://discourse.datamethods.org/u/ESMD)\
**Post date:** [September 30, 2026, 12:19pm UTC](https://discourse.datamethods.org/t/helping-patients-to-use-ai-wisely/28876/2 "2026-09-30T12:19:56Z")

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This is great, Karl. Thanks for putting it together. One possible suggestion is to caution patients against asking AI to confirm their pre-existing theories or to substantiate their deepest fears. My interactions with certain patients suggest that their questions to AI have taken the following form: “Can symptom X be caused by disease Y?” OR “Can disease Y cause symptom X?”

This approach is the exact _opposite_ of the approach that doctors use for differential diagnosis. Patients’ approach invariably culminates in AI “confirming” their deepest-seated fears or personal theories regarding the cause of their symptoms.

Physicians take a detailed history (informed by deep knowledge of each patient’s personal context) before arriving at a differential diagnosis. They don’t start a clinical encounter with a specific diagnosis in mind and then seek _confirmation_ for something they _already believe to be true_. In other words, many patients seem to use AI as a data-dredging device (analogous to dredging an administrative database to identify “causal” relationships between a drug exposure and a clinical event).

If patients ask the AI agent very specific questions, seeking support for their preconceived ideas, and, if they sense even a _whiff_ of support from AI (often because they aren’t familiar with ways to get AI to provide only “high quality” evidence), the subsequent clinical encounter can become extremely challenging.

So the lines “AI is not a doctor” and “AI can not diagnose you” are true, but need some elaboration.

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**Author:** ![karlamoPA](https://discourse.datamethods.org/user_avatar/discourse.datamethods.org/karlamopa/32/1276_2.png) [@karlamoPA](https://discourse.datamethods.org/u/karlamoPA)\
**Post date:** [October 1, 2026, 11:30am UTC](https://discourse.datamethods.org/t/helping-patients-to-use-ai-wisely/28876/3 "2026-10-01T11:30:32Z")

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Revisions are likely, but I put together a PDF version that can be printed and distributed.

> **[How AI Can Help.pdf](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mckgAiVjLFUhHM3Uuz_O-E6fffJxXssu/view?usp=sharing)**
>
> Google Drive file.

I see that the bookmarks did not translate correctly. I’ll fix shortly but the link to the PDF will remain unchanged.