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Join us in this insightful episode as we sit down with Isabelle Tran, a medical student and writer, to explore the intersection of technology and health. Inspired by her poem “AI Ally,” Isabelle delves into the emotional journey of patients receiving a serious diagnosis like thyroid cancer. We discuss how AI and search engines can be both a lifeline and a source of anxiety, the balance between digital and human support, and the role of narrative medicine in understanding patient experiences.

Isabelle Tran is a medical student.

She discusses the KevinMD article, “A modern tale of thyroid cancer: AI, haikus, and healing.”

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Transcript

Kevin Pho: Hi, and welcome to the show. Subscribe at KevinMD.com/podcast, and get CME for this episode by clicking on the CME link in the show notes. Today we welcome Isabelle Tran. She’s a medical student, and today’s KevinMD article is “A modern tale of thyroid cancer: AI, haikus, and healing.” Isabelle, welcome to the show.

Isabelle Tran: Hi, thank you so much for having me, Kevin.

Kevin Pho: So Isabelle, you’re a medical student. Just briefly share your story and journey.

Isabelle Tran: Yeah, so I’m a medical student at the Burnett School of Medicine at TCU here in Fort Worth, Texas. It’s been a long, varied journey that maybe we’ll get into later. But I’m originally from California. I went to UC Irvine for undergrad. I studied cognitive science, which really fit me because it’s basically an eclectic blend of neuroscience, psychology, which I love, of course like linguistics, and computer science, interestingly enough. So I’ve always had a really big, broad range of interests. And you know, a series of events happened in life, as they do, that led me to believing that becoming a physician would be the best option to really pursue all my goals.

Kevin Pho: All right. You wrote this KevinMD article, “A modern tale of thyroid cancer: AI, haikus, and healing.” For those who didn’t get a chance to read your article, tell us what it’s about.

Isabelle Tran: Yeah, so basically I wrote this haiku called AI Ally for a haiku contest with Med Mic. I thought it was super fun because I was currently on a leave of absence from school due to personal reasons, and I’ve always, always, always enjoyed writing, but I haven’t really had a chance to do any creative writing since pursuing the medical education journey.

So I was like, oh, a haiku, like what could I possibly write about? I remember doing haikus back in like elementary school, so I knew the format, you know, the five-seven-five, like, meter, syllabic meter, I don’t know. But yeah, so it really challenged me to use those creative juices that have been bottling up for so long. And this one in particular didn’t win, another one I submitted, one that was more traditional. But I was a bit creative in this.

So the theme of the haiku, AI Ally, was about how like ChatGPT and other forms of technology can basically serve as a support for people who are going through really difficult things related to their health. There’s been a huge amount of discussion within the past year around ChatGPT, AI, and just the dangers and perils of it. But I’ve always loved technology, and I think my cognitive science background really lent me a more humanistic approach to technology.

So I wanted to write more of an optimistic piece on how things like ChatGPT can serve as support, to bring people together, to bring people closer to themselves, to their health, back to the health community, I guess. Like, I wanted to counter that narrative that is so prevalent these days, that technology is this horrible thing that is dividing people, which I do see some of that, and a source of misinformation, which I do see that as well. But it could be, if we frame it in the right way, a place where we can get more information and give people courage to learn more about their health and take that power back into their own hands, which will ultimately bring them back to trusting medicine more.

I think that a lot of that discourse around misinformation, and just internet causing this divide between physicians and health care professionals from people, I think there’s a way that if we on the end of like clinicians and like future physicians and current physicians see it the way that maybe our patients do, if we can understand them from that level, that will bring them together.

Kevin Pho: So tell us what AI Ally is about. Tell us the gist of that haiku.

Isabelle Tran: Yeah, so it’s about a fictional woman who just discovers that she has thyroid cancer. And in that fear she turns to Google, like she Googles, what is a thyroid. And she goes to ChatGPT to find comfort, and it pops out a cute little haiku as well. And after seeing the information from Google and from reading, kind of talking to this AI, ChatGPT, she finds a sort of relief and a sort of comfort. So she’s able to process her new diagnosis, and then she turns to her family and friends, and then she calls her doctor, ready to talk, ready to listen, is what I say. But yeah, so that’s what that’s about.

Kevin Pho: So when listening to you, you imply that the way the medical profession views ChatGPT and AI stands in contrast to how patients see and use ChatGPT and AI. So talk a little bit about that contrast.

Isabelle Tran: Yeah, so as a medical student I was surrounded by a lot of people within the medical field, and it was a sharp contrast to my undergrad experience in the cognitive science field in terms of looking at things like technology. And that was almost a culture shock to me.

I believe, in my own perspective, that the medical community leans conservative with these things. Understandably so, because there is such a huge responsibility in making sure that we’re doing the best for our patients, and if we make mistakes, people’s lives are in danger. And that’s fair. And because of the amount of information that’s required, we don’t really have time always to look very deeply into the current events surrounding these things, not at least until after medical school, from my vantage point.

But coming from that kind of tech background, and coming from, I’ve always been someone who’s always looking at current events and just seeing what is the next upcoming thing, it really does seem like people are all about ChatGPT, especially the younger generation. I grew up in an age where I Googled everything, like I Googled questions I was too scared to even ask my parents, in fear of what they might think of what I’m curious about.

And I do agree with both sides, in the sense that there is that whole danger of misinformation and things out there, and like WebMD, like that whole, it isn’t great to have people kind of looking up their own diagnoses and getting information everywhere.

But I was seeing a lot of kind of dismissal of everything as a whole, like being stuck in that old way of thinking of like, OK, like we tell the patient what is going on, if they’re coming with things from the internet, like that’s silly, you know, like we’re going to reassure them the best way we can, but like don’t look at Google, don’t look at those things, blah blah blah. It feels very dismissive sometimes.

And I think that’s where there could be a bridge to understanding where patients are coming from, like really hearing them out with what the internet might tell them. And it’s an opportunity to also correct misinformation. Like, as clinicians we have that privilege to be able to help people with their health, and if they are coming with misinformation, instead of dismissing it, just being like, OK, OK, I see that you saw this, and I see that you believed this, and I see that this is saying this, but you know, this part’s correct and this part might not be so correct.

But just understanding that people, especially I think my age or younger, feel more comfortable sometimes going to that. It feels, I’m not saying it is, but it feels like a neutral party before you can actually talk to people. Connection’s hard. So understanding that step, understanding why people are turning to technology, is really important if we’re to correct that misinformation and that danger of AI taking over.

Kevin Pho: Yeah, and on KevinMD and on this podcast we’ve been talking about ChatGPT and AI for many, many episodes over almost two years since it has come into existence, and not only talking about the risk but also talking about, like you said, a lot of the opportunities that AI can offer us. And I think specifically as it relates to patients, there’s been many studies saying that patients talking to an AI chatbot, they sometimes feel their responses are more empathetic than talking to an actual doctor, right? So I think that it’s important for us in medicine to meet patients where they’re at, whether it’s Google, whether it’s social media, and whether it’s AI. And it’s important not to dismiss it, but like you said, it’s an opportunity to open that discussion and correct any misinformation or hallucinations that may be there.

So why is it important for you to write in a haiku, or write into a narrative or poetry form, to express some of your thoughts about that intersection between AI and health care?

Isabelle Tran: I think it comes back down to the story. I think that as humans we’re very narrative-oriented, right? That’s why movies and books have stood the test of time. I think that’s why when we hear a personal case of someone going through some sort of diagnosis, it sticks in our brain better than just learning from textbooks.

And my first two years of medical school, it was just a lot of text and information, just information constantly being dumped on me, and also regurgitating that information. And the studying helps for sure, but what really helped me was when we would have a patient come in and tell their story firsthand in class. I remember a lot of my patients from volunteering at the free clinic before medical school, and as a trauma volunteer before medical school, more than sometimes even things from my first two years of medical school.

And the haiku format really helped me personally, because I mentioned this in the article that I wrote, but my dad was actually diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2013, so back when I was in high school. And that really impacted my family. And I’ve always been, I’m a very open person, but I am more introverted, and sometimes when things hit a little too close to home it becomes hard for me to talk about it. And the haiku, the art form, talking about a fictional woman who could apply to anybody, really helped me even tell my own story and process my own feelings around that thyroid cancer diagnosis from a while ago.

So it is almost as if, by telling stories and by using narrative art, it provides like a safe buffer between those very difficult emotions to process, which ultimately allows people, I guess allowed me, to process those emotions too.

Kevin Pho: How is a haiku different from other forms of poetry?

Isabelle Tran: So haiku is different because it has a very rigid format. A lot of free form poetry is popular these days, like it doesn’t even have to rhyme sometimes. But haiku, it doesn’t have to rhyme, but the first line has to be five syllables, then the second line has to be seven syllables, and then the last line has to be five syllables.

I played with the format creatively for AI Ally, in that I used multiple stanzas to tell the story, but each stanza was restricted to that five-seven-five meter. I also played with the format by including screenshots from Google and ChatGPT, but even the Google screenshot adheres to that seven syllable line that was required in that particular area of the haiku.

So yeah, in a sense it was fun being able to know the rules and having to adhere to the rules of the haiku, while also kind of breaking the rules after I knew the rules. So it was a very fun creative little experiment for me.

Kevin Pho: So you mentioned earlier that the first two years of medical school is an information dump. It’s almost proverbially like drinking from a fire hose of information. Tell me why you still carve out time to write and express yourself artistically, and why is that important for you to continue throughout your medical journey.

Isabelle Tran: Yeah, so my entire life I’ve been very like go, go, go, go, go, like I need to get these things done, all of that. And when I switched to premed in undergrad it became very much that, like I had the school, I wanted to become a physician, I knew that, and I knew that I need to plan out all the steps to do that.

And then 2020 happened, a bunch of stuff in my personal life happened, obviously the pandemic happened in 2020, the whole world was forced to slow down and I was one of them. But I was also studying for the MCAT at the time, and also preparing my application to medical school at the time. But what that time period allowed me to do was really focus on aspects of the application, like the personal statement. And the personal statement was the first time in a really, really, really long time where I had to write an essay, not just like any essay, like a story narrative based essay that of course talked about myself. And that kind of changed a lot of my mindset and mentality around having creative outlets.

As you were saying, when I was younger, like my parents put me in a lot of musical things. They’re computer scientists, but they love their choir and they love singing, and that was something that was available to me as a young kid. And that was something I kind of lost when I got older.

But writing that personal statement to medical school, it really forced me to reflect on my journey, reflect on all the things that I had been doing, go, go, go, go, go, up until that point. And it not only kind of changed my mindset around how I approached my life, it reminded me how much I love writing, something that I like completely forgot.

And then of course the first two years of medical school happened, and I kind of lost a bit of that again. But somehow life forced me again into this time of leave of absence, it’s time to slow down. And while I was studying for like Step 1 a bit during that time, that combined stress with all this extra time really just, like, I don’t know, I just felt it in me, like I needed to create again, like I needed to write. I started with journaling, I started writing like songs and things like that, like poetry, reading a lot more again.

And I think why it’s important and why it helped me was, it brought balance back to my life. It’s like I got really burnt out from the first two years of medical school, and I think it was because of that lack of balance. It’s that always being on the go and just losing myself through that process. And being creative has really helped me find myself again, and helped me become more in touch with my emotions, who I am, my values, and just why I’m even on this journey in the first place.

Kevin Pho: We’re talking to Isabelle Tran. She’s a medical student. Today’s KevinMD article is “A modern tale of thyroid cancer: AI, haikus, and healing.” Isabelle, we’ll end with some of your take-home messages that you want to leave with the KevinMD audience.

Isabelle Tran: Yeah, so I guess the take-home message here for your audience, and I’m so grateful for your platform, by the way, it’s also really helped me on this journey, is that our career demands a lot from us, as everything in life does. So both career and just the craziness that comes with life. And it’s really important to find things, it doesn’t have to be writing, it doesn’t have to be poetry, but it’s really important to find things that connect us back to ourselves.

I mentioned how some aspects tied back to my childhood and my journey. It’s just really important to reflect sometimes on our journey and why we’re on the path that we’re on, to avoid that burnout, and more importantly just to remain present and be the best that we can be. We can’t really help other people unless we help ourselves. So to me art has really been a way to kind of help myself so I can better help others.

Kevin Pho: Isabelle, thank you so much for sharing your story, time, and insight, and thanks again for coming on the show.

Isabelle Tran: Thank you so much.