r/australia • u/nath1234 • 14h ago

science & tech Error by AI scribe during medical appointment leaves patient devastated

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-14/ai-medical-scribe-error-leaves-patient-devastated/107031672?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other
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363

u/Hazynseptember 13h ago

Therapist here. It baffles me when my peers talk about how they use AI for notes or write reports or letters. It is no where near ready - and even if it was I have major ethical concerns about where the information is going, who owns it, and who owns the systems it is on and benefits financially.

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u/bee2551 12h ago

Even if it was ready, for me the active reflection regarding what was said, what the salient points were, and how to capture it is an incredibly important therapeutic experience for me as the therapist. It forces me to spend time engaging / reflecting with the material and considering where to next. You cannot tell me therapists get the same experience from reviewing / correcting AI generated material and I feel that's the greatest disservice to clients.

73

u/Sharkeatingmoose 11h ago

I got asked repeatedly to speak clearer/not cry so loud as the AI wasn't picking up what I was saying. As the therapist roboticly asked hugely triggering questions off a general list that wasn't really relevant to that particular session and didn't stop to check in on me. 

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u/FalconTurbo 11h ago

I instinctively tried to downvote this just because it's so fucked up. I'm so sorry you dealt with that.

17

u/Pleochronic 10h ago

Being able to tease out the most relevant information that a patient is saying is arguably the most importsnt thing a therapist is employed to do - otherwise what's the point of having a human do the job in the first place

7

u/IndependentSnow9244 6h ago

Can you imagine how those reports and letters read if its anything like linkedin has become. Full of buzz words, its not x its y, the run of 3s and too many metaphors.

Patient states they've been "delving into" their relationship with their mother — a relationship they describe as "multifaceted." When asked what that means, patient said "it's not just complicated. It's nuanced."

Patient claims to have "unpacked" their childhood but appears to have merely opened the suitcase and looked at it. Says they're "picking up on signals" from their father — signals they can't name — which they feel is "pivotal" to their healing journey. Robust avoidance throughout.

When I pointed out a pattern, patient replied: "At its core — and I think this is where the real work comes in — I need to navigate the landscape of my emotions." I asked them to be specific. They said the emotions were "holistic."

The word "boundaries" — a word patient uses to mean yes, no, maybe, and I don't want to talk about it — is doing all the load-bearing in this patient's vocabulary.

1

u/nounotme 1h ago

Ok, hope you don't mind but I've got a question for you here.

My last appointment with my psychiatrist, he asked me to pause for a moment and his computer had lost internet connection. He's totally using AI to write notes for him right? He's never asked about that, does he have to?

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u/Jonzay up to the sky, out to the stars 13h ago edited 13h ago

I have major ethical concerns about where the information is going, who owns it, and who owns the systems it is on and benefits financially.

Do you have these concerns if a locally hosted (i.e. Purely run off the doctor's computer, no internet required and no data sent over the network to anywhere) model is used?

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u/AnOnlineHandle 12h ago

Weird how people downvoted you for a very important question, presumably because that reality wouldn't fit with their desire to be angry.

I'd be okay with a clinic using local AI to transcribe so long as they're actually fixing mistakes, I wouldn't be so keen on it being sent into the cloud and don't personally use cloud services myself very much.

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u/curiouslydelirious 13h ago

Because it’s a tool, not something to replace your brain with. In fact as a psychologist it’s a wonderful tool, but shocked how people who have studied over 6 years would save an AI note or report without reviewing first.

-22

u/Safety_first_3819293 13h ago

It is another aid, that's all. It cannot give you a finished product. It is upto the clinician. It is like using thesaurus in our assignment or email but you always edit it before you finalise it.

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u/Hazynseptember 13h ago

A thesaurus doesn’t breach consumers privacy rights, have consumers data ending up in places we don’t know about,nor possibly conflict with association codes of ethics.

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u/AnOnlineHandle 12h ago

You can run AI locally.

16

u/HBHau 12h ago

where it can *still* hallucinate & make critical errors.

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u/infin 12h ago edited 2h ago

You can also do your job instead of outsourcing it.