Medicine

Large language models (LLMs) are rapidly being integrated into clinical workflows, supporting tasks such as diagnosis generation and patient communication.1 Hallucinations—unintended fabrications arising from gaps in a model’s underlying knowledge—are a well recognised risk. However, research in 2024 has identified a distinct class of model behaviour, known as deception. Deception occurs when a model produces outputs that misrepresent its reasoning or capabilities in ways that make the output appear more credible or aligned with user expectations.2 Although LLMs do not possess human-like intent, this behaviour functions more like deliberate misrepresentation.

This post is intended for those in the healthcare field. This article is interesting because:

This is my exact concern, patients will feel compelled to say they consent even if they do not, whether it is because of politeness or deferring to authority

some excerpts

The study, published in The Lancet medical journal on Friday, also showed patients who underwent the less invasive procedure for multiple blocked arteries recovered faster than their counterparts who got the traditional one.

Article: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landig/article/PIIS2589-7500(26)00036-1/fulltext?rss=yes

An investigation by Science and Retraction Watch has uncovered details about a clinical trial that resulted in the death of its sole patient: a 6-year-old girl with a rare genetic mutation affecting her cognitive development.

Burn specialists at an Ontario hospital say they have carried out a world-first treatment using a novel biological therapy to treat a young woman severely injured in a house fire.

A range of other medications could serve as alternatives to powerful opioids for pain relief in emergency departments, according to a new study.

A new Ebola outbreak in DR Congo has caused at least 246 suspected cases and 80 deaths, according to the latest figures released on Saturday. There is currently no vaccine available for the strain, known as Bundibugyo, which is considered highly lethal, the country’s health minister Samuel-Roger Kamba told a press briefing in Kinshasa.

The State Department is considering withholding lifesaving assistance to people with H.I.V. in Zambia as a negotiating tactic to force the government of the southern African country to sign a deal giving the United States more access to its critical minerals.

Source: Steinbeck, Viktoria, Ishani Ganguli, and Irene Papanicolasn, Primary Care Physician Trends: Dissatisfaction, Stress, And Burnout In The US And 9 Comparator Countries, 2012–22, Health Affairs 45, no. 3 (2026)

The new drug has caused excitement as it is a type of treatment called immunotherapy. This approach uses the body’s own immune system to fight disease, and has already proved beneficial for some cancers. However, experts note it has not yet had the same impact on prostate cancer.