Doctors are increasingly turning to AI tools like GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformers) to ease routine burdens in clinical practice. A recent survey found that 1 in 5 UK general practitioners use generative AI such as ChatGPT for daily tasks – most often for writing patient letters or notes, and even for suggesting diagnoses.
These AI assistants are helping address key pain points in healthcare: tedious documentation, information overload, and complex decision-making. Below we break down the most valuable, simple yet high-impact ways GPT is being used by physicians today, and how these applications directly tackle doctors’ everyday challenges.
Key Pain Points in Clinical Practice
Before diving into the solutions, it’s important to recognize the common pain points doctors face in their workflow:
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Administrative Overload:
Physicians spend a large share of their day on paperwork – charting visits, writing referral letters, discharge summaries, and other documentation. This reduces time with patients and contributes to burnout.
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Information Overload:
Medical knowledge is vast and ever-growing. Clinicians must recall drug details, treatment guidelines, and research findings on the fly, which is daunting and time-consuming.
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Complex Decision-Making:
Diagnosing and managing patients can be complicated, especially with rare conditions or extensive histories. Doctors worry about missing something (e.g., overlooked differential diagnoses or drug interactions) and often desire a “second set of eyes” to support their clinical reasoning.
AI language models like GPT are stepping in as convenient aides to alleviate these issues. Let’s explore how.
Streamlining Documentation and Administrative Tasks
One of the highest-impact uses of GPT in medicine is automating paperwork and note-taking. Doctors often joke that the “secretary” work of medicine is endless – and indeed, writing up visit notes and letters is a task “everybody has to do, but nobody wants to do.”
AI is changing that. Many physicians now use GPT-based tools to draft clinical documentation in seconds, based on either brief notes or transcripts of the patient visit. For example, GPT can generate:
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Visit Summaries & Progress Notes:
After seeing a patient, a doctor can input key points (e.g., symptoms, exam findings, diagnosis, plan) and have GPT produce a well-structured clinical note for the electronic health record.
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Referral Letters and Insurance Documents:
GPT is used to write template letters – such as referral letters to specialists or prior authorization letters to insurers – which physicians then quickly tweak.
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Discharge Instructions & Summaries:
AI can draft discharge summaries or home-care instructions for patients in clear language, ensuring nothing is missed and saving the doctor from starting from scratch.
These generative AI solutions significantly reduce the documentation burden. In fact, a study showed ChatGPT could produce medical notes up to 10× faster than physicians, without compromising quality.
Major electronic health record (EHR) systems (like Epic and Athenahealth) are even integrating GPT-based assistants to format notes and correspondence automatically.
Rapid Retrieval of Medical Knowledge
Another powerful use of GPT is as a quick reference and knowledge retrieval assistant. No matter how experienced, a doctor can’t memorize every clinical detail or latest study. GPT offers a way to quickly tap into medical knowledge bases when immediate answers are needed:
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Answering Clinical Questions:
Physicians report using ChatGPT to quickly find answers to clinical queries. For example, a doctor might ask, “What are the diagnostic criteria for [a rare disease]?” or “What’s the latest guideline-recommended medication for [a condition] given a patient’s profile?”
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Summarizing Research or Guidelines:
When faced with information overload, doctors can have GPT distill long articles or guidelines into key bullet points. For instance, an oncologist could paste an abstract and prompt the AI for the main takeaways, or a primary care doctor could ask for a summary of new hypertension management recommendations.
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Drug Information & Interactions:
GPT can serve as a quick drug reference as well. A physician might query the chatbot about a medication’s side effects or check for potential drug–drug interactions among a patient’s medications.
This instant knowledge retrieval is like having a supercharged digital assistant. However, caution is key: while GPT is very knowledgeable, it may occasionally hallucinate (produce incorrect info that sounds convincing).
Physicians using it for reference must double-check critical facts against trusted sources or their own expertise.
Clinical Decision Support and Reasoning Aids
Beyond paperwork and facts, GPT can even assist with clinical decision-making as a kind of brainstorming partner. Doctors are leveraging AI to support their diagnostic and therapeutic reasoning in a few ways:
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Generating Differential Diagnoses:
When confronted with a complex case or an unclear set of symptoms, a physician can ask GPT, “What possible diagnoses should I consider for this presentation?”
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Recommending Next Steps:
Similarly, GPT can be prompted for management ideas – e.g., “Given this diagnosis, what are the recommended treatment options or necessary follow-up tests?”
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Consistency and Safety Checks:
AI can also act as a safety net by reviewing plans for omissions or conflicts.
In these decision-support roles, GPT is effectively an assistant for clinical reasoning. It can synthesize large amounts of medical data and knowledge to provide suggestions, but the physician remains the ultimate decision-maker.
Ensuring Privacy and Safe Use of AI in Practice
While the benefits of GPT in clinical workflows are clear, doctors must implement these tools in a privacy-conscious and responsible manner.
A major concern is protecting patient health information (PHI). Most public AI chatbots (including the free version of ChatGPT) are not HIPAA-compliant. Key guidelines for safe use include:
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Avoid Inputting Identifiable Data:
Physicians should never directly input a patient’s name, date of birth, contact info, or other identifiers into an AI prompt.
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Use Secure Platforms When Available:
Some EHR vendors now have built-in AI assistants that keep data within the health system’s firewall.
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Human Oversight is Mandatory:
Always double-check any clinical content produced by GPT for accuracy, context, and bias before using it in patient care.
Conclusion
GPT is emerging as a powerful assistant in medicine, alleviating administrative burdens, providing instant access to medical knowledge, and supporting clinical decision-making. By integrating AI responsibly, doctors can reclaim valuable time and focus on what matters most – patient care.
References
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British Medical Journal. (2023). GPs using AI for documentation and diagnoses. Retrieved from
To OSCE or not to OSCE?
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Mobius MD. (2023). Examples of ChatGPT use in medicine (notes, letters, drug checks). Retrieved from https://www.mobius.md/blog/chatgpt-in-healthcare/
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University of Southern California. (2023). Physicians consolidating notes and correspondence via GPT; HIPAA concerns. Retrieved from https://healthpolicy.usc.edu/articles/ai-in-clinical-practice/
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Texas Medicine. (2023). AI for appointment reminders, discharge summaries; EHR integration. Retrieved from https://www.texmed.org/ai_in_medicine/
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Uppsala University. (2023). GPT writes notes 10× faster than doctors (reducing admin burden). Retrieved from https://www.uu.se/en/news/ai-clinical-notes