Can Artificial Intelligence Practice Medicine?

By Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH

A new paper landed in my inbox today titled: Software as a Medical Practitioner—Is It Time to License Artificial Intelligence? by Bressman et al from Department of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. The paper tackles the usual questions of licensing, responsibility, and liability as it applies to software tools used in clinical practice.

No doubt artificial intelligence is playing an ever-increasing role in medicine. From my perspective this paper speculates on a late step in the evolution of AI, not the first steps. Here is what Bressman et al is missing for AI:

  1. Obtaining permission for record gathering from disparate health systems, clinics, labs and imaging services

  2. Assembly of all information into a personal health timeline

  3. Creation, registration, and patient set up of electronic medical records

  4. Structured interviews

  5. Synthesis of information for presentation to doctor or other healthcare provider

It’s important that AI enthusiasts to remain grounded in the very basic blocking and tackling in medicine. So far not a single AI program has proposed yet accomplished these five tasks in their entirety.

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Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH

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Bressman E, Shachar C, Stern AD, Mehrotra A. Software as a Medical Practitioner—Is It Time to License Artificial Intelligence? JAMA Intern Med. Published online November 17, 2025. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2025.6132

 

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