My Medical Writing Journey

My undergrad years were spent studying the humanities, mainly journalism and photography. My desire to pursue a more compelling career led me to take the science prerequisites and prepare for the MCATs for my application to medical school at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, NY.

Medical School & Clinical Decision Support AI

In medical school I began evaluating computer expert systems for clinical decision support. This is when I started my membership with the American Medical Informatics Assoc., attending their annual meetings in Washington, D.C.

I was able to talk with the seminal researchers in this field including Homer Warner who developed the Iliad program which used Bayesian statistics for diagnostic support. I also interviewed Edward Shortliffe, whose MYCIN software was meant to help with analyzing blood culture results.

Post-Grad

Upon graduation, I received further training in Clinical Pathology, Anatomic Pathology, and General Surgery.

During my Clinical Pathology training, I worked with Dr. Martin Salwen and his rule-based program for determining the causes of erythrocytosis.

My mentor Dr. Matthew Pincus, is known for his work in designing a group of anti-cancer peptides from the ras-p21 and p53 proteins using protein-folding computing. I worked with Dr. Pincus as co-author for his chapter on tumor markers in one edition of the standard clinical pathology text Henry's Clinical Diagnosis and Management by Laboratory Methods.

As a general surgery resident, I co-produced a Webinar for Palm that explored the clinical uses of their Treo smartphone.

My continuing interest in writing on oncology topics led me to participate in the New York State Cancer Consortium.

Current Focus

My current study is a return to my initial interests in medical school. I’m now involved in researching and writing about the clinical use of artificial intelligence. While its earliest use in clinical medicine was with rule-based expert systems, they have since fallen out of favor, replaced by the advanced capabilities of machine learning and neural networks.

I recently rejoined the American Medical Writers Assoc., where I was first a member in 2005. My work involved helping clinician researchers publish their work, even helping non-native English speakers draft their papers as well as responses written for medical journals.

Substack Online Newsletters

CogSciAI (Cognitive Science - AI) is where I write about news and emerging trends about artificial intelligence with a focus on health care.

3rd Act Journey allows me to explore how the various clinical disciplines: Orthopedics, Cardiology, Oncology, et al., as they apply to Geriatrics.

My Mission/Vision

“The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall.” - Edward O. Wilson

Never has the momentum for advancing technology been so great in the practice of medicine. Generative AI has shown signs of reasoning abilities, prompting such seminal researchers such as Stuart Russell and Geoffrey Hinton to warn about the possible negative effects.