Matthew DeCamp, MD, PhD, and colleagues are shining a light on artificial intelligence’s role — and appearance — in health care.  “Sometimes overlooked is what a chatbot looks like – its avatar,” the researchers write in a new paper published in Annals of Internal Medicine. “Current chatbot avatars vary from faceless health system logos to cartoon characters or human-like caricatures. Chatbots could one day be digitized versions of a patient’s physician, with that physician’s likeness and voice. Far from an innocuous design decision, chatbot avatars raise novel ethical questions about nudging and bias.”

The paper, titled “More than just a pretty face? Nudging and bias in chatbots”, challenges researchers and health care professionals to closely examine chatbots through a health equity lens and investigate whether the technology truly improves patient outcomes.  Read article>>

The Indiana Medical Licensing Board voted to reprimand Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an Indianapolis obstetrician-gynecologist, after she spoke to the press about providing an abortion to a 10-year-old rape victim from Ohio.  

NewsNation host Dan Abrams says there’s “no way” anyone would be able to identify the patient based on the information disclosed by the doctor.  Center Director Matthew Wynia, MD, MPH, weighed in stating, " This is an illustration that medical ethics and journalistic ethics worked in this case.  What did not work in this case is political ethics."  Listen to interview>>