Medicine, Machines, and Magic: Dr. Jonathan Chen on Medical AI
In this episode, Dr. Jonathan Chen joins the hosts to discuss his path from teenage programmer to Stanford physician-informatician and why machine learning has both thrilled and unnerved him. From his 2017 NEJM essay warning about “inflated expectations” to his latest studies showing GPT‑4 outperforming doctors on diagnostic tasks, Dr. Chen describes a discipline learning humility at machine speed. This conversation spans medical education, automation anxiety, magic, and why empathy—not memorization—may become the most valuable clinical skill.
Transcript.
--------
48:17
--------
48:17
From Clinician to Chief Health AI Officer: A Conversation with Dr. Karandeep Singh
Dr. Karandeep Singh brings two worlds together: programming and medicine. In this conversation, he explains how early experiments with code led him to biomedical informatics, why gaps between paper performance and clinical reality must be confronted, and how governance committees weigh ethics and safety. Now serving as Chief Health AI Officer at UC San Diego Health, he reflects on lessons from deploying sepsis prediction tools, the risks of hype, and the promise of integration. For clinicians, Singh’s story is a reminder that the best AI is guided by patient care, deep expertise, and humility about the limits of technology.
Transcript.
--------
1:02:32
--------
1:02:32
Radiologist Turned CEO: Dr. Jeremy Friese on AI for Prior Authorization
Dr. Jeremy Friese knows medicine from both sides. A practicing radiologist and technology executive, he’s seen firsthand how administrative burden undermines care. In this episode of NEJM AI Grand Rounds, he walks through the origins of prior authorization, explains why he believes artificial intelligence can close the gap between patients and payers, and argues that real reform means showing your work—just like in math class. At Humata, he’s combining human oversight, LLMs, and interoperability to try to fix a broken system. For clinicians overwhelmed by back-office complexity, this conversation offers both urgency and optimism.
Transcript.
--------
42:59
--------
42:59
Can AI Accelerate Science? Dr. Andy Beam on AI’s Next Frontier
Dr. Andy Beam has trained models, mentored scientists, and used data to quantify the value of treatments. In this episode of NEJM AI Grand Rounds, Raj Manrai turns the table on his co-host, reflecting on how Andy’s childhood misdiagnosis, and the failure of human recall, revealed the diagnostic promise of machine learning. As a Harvard professor, he mentored hybrid thinkers and built tools to evaluate safety, not just performance. Now CTO of Lila Sciences, he’s building an experimental AI system to generate its own hypotheses and test them in the real world. This conversation is a front-row seat to the next evolution of science.
Transcript.
--------
1:07:28
--------
1:07:28
Google’s Efforts to Build Patient-Facing AI: A Conversation with Drs. Alan Karthikesalingam and Anil Palepu
In this episode of NEJM AI Grand Rounds, guests Drs. Alan Karthikesalingam and Anil Palepu of Google walk co-hosts Raj Manrai and Andy Beam through the making and evaluation of AMIE, an AI system designed to conduct clinical conversations with patients. Alan and Anil explain how AMIE was trained using synthetic doctor-patient interactions generated by LLMs playing multiple roles—doctor, patient, critic, and moderator. They reveal how synthetic dialogue, guided by structured feedback and grounded in search, proved more effective than noisy real-world transcripts in building a model that could reason, ask questions, and show empathy. The discussion also covers what the “long tail” of medicine demands for building robust AI systems and how AMIE might one day augment real clinical workflows. Finally, Alan reflects on how AI has changed—and how it hasn’t—in the two years since he was last on the podcast.
Transcript.
NEJM AI Grand Rounds, hosted by Arjun (Raj) Manrai, Ph.D. and Andrew Beam, Ph.D., features informal conversations with a variety of unique experts exploring the deep issues at the intersection of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and medicine. You’ll learn how AI will change clinical practice and healthcare, how it will impact the patient experience, and about the people who are pushing for innovation. Whether you are an AI researcher or a practicing clinician, these conversations will enlighten and surprise you as we journey through this very exciting field. Produced by NEJM Group.
Listen to NEJM AI Grand Rounds, Decoded | Unlock The Secrets of Human Behavior, Emotion and Motivation and many other podcasts from around the world with the radio.net app
USA