It’s an all too common refrain to say we are short on time, but from a very personal perspective, suffice it to say time has never meant more to me than it does now as we rally around the care of a dear family member.
I’ve always hoped that TCMP represents a time-saver for our readers. Sifting through the endless stream of new medical data to find the trials that impact practice can be overwhelming. By selecting and presenting trials through the lens of practice change, our mission is to provide you with data and tools to enhance your care of patients across a range of conditions.
This year, inspired by one of our own editors, as well as one of our Top 5 articles, I have implemented an AI scribe to my practice. I can honestly say this was the most impactful change in my own practice that wasn’t directly related to managing a clinical condition. The scribe has greatly boosted my efficiency in generating consult letters, saving literally several hours of time each week. For the first time in over a decade, I get out of the office reliably before 6:30 PM. While it does take time to ensure accuracy, and the AI doesn’t capture my obvious wit and charm, it does a surprisingly good job of summarizing an unstructured, free-flowing conversation with a patient. Editing a document takes less time than generating each word of it, and this has had a palpable impact on my finish time each day.
We are currently in the infancy of generative AI. AI scribes are already making suggested differential diagnoses and investigations based on the conversation. Further down the road, AI agents (watch for the next industry buzzword: “agentic AI”) could scour your medical record, look up and collate historical lab results and flag trends that can identify diseases earlier than we can on our own.
While the future is exciting, traditions can also keep us on track, so in the TCMP tradition, here are the Top 5 articles that your peers felt would likely or definitely change their practice:
Top 5 Articles with Intention to Change Practice:
- “Therapeutic considerations of gabapentin versus pregabalin in treating chronic neuropathic pain” by Anthony Lau, Katherine Daley, Hans Haag, Dr. Martha Ignaszewski
- “Asthma and COPD as-needed inhalers (SABD): where refills matter” by Drs. Kevin Liang and Philip Hui
- “Gouty pitfalls” by Drs. Carson Chin, Nathan Hitchman, and Jordan Friedmann
- “What I talk about when I talk about family planning” by Dr. Michelle C. Chan
- “Talking smart: conversational AI streamlines clinical practice” by Rohit Singla PhD, Drs. Daniel Raff, Hester Vivier, and Andre Van Wyk
As always, on behalf of all of us at TCMP, we wish you all a safe, happy and healthy holiday season, and most of all, more time for the things that matter most.
Steve Wong, MD, FRCPC
Internal Medicine
Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, UBC
Medical Director, This Changed My Practice
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