5 ms·

Brother-in-law graduated med school in the early 90s and has been a practicing ER physician since. We discussed this recently and he related that his advisors

• storus 6mo ago
  The issue with radiologists is that on average they are able to spot ~35% of correct diagnoses, while the world's best radiologists ~45%. AI might get us to ~50% which is ~15% better than an average radiologist (who still needs to review it).
  • Forgeties79 6mo ago
    Where are you getting these numbers? Even a cursory search doesn’t put the numbers anywhere near such poor performance by real people. AI at 50% would be notably worse (also where are you getting that number?)
    • storus 6mo ago
      From radiologist AI training datasets, evaluated long-term/post-mortem.
      • Forgeties79 6mo ago
        I hate to be “source?” about it but your numbers are so far off what every search result is showing.
        • storus 6mo ago
          I am not saying those are for all diagnoses, but for some tricky yet important ones (i.e. detecting them early might save your life).
          • Forgeties79 6mo ago
            You did not give specificity of any kind until now, and now I’m even more curious where these numbers are coming from.
            • storus 6mo ago
              Some data (average radiologist score): Early-Stage Lung Cancer (via Chest X-ray) 33.3% Clinical Staging of Stage I Pancreatic Cancer (via CT, MRI, EUS) 21.6% Breast Cancer (via Mammography in Dense Tissue) 30% Cuneiform fractures (foot, X-Ray) 0% Midfoot fractures (general, X-Ray) 12.5% Cuboid fractures (X-Ray) 14.29% Navicular fractures (X-Ray) 22.22% Talus fractures (X-Ray) 21.43% Individual radiologists often scored 5% in those as well. The skill distribution is brutal.
              • Forgeties79 6mo ago
                If your original argument was “it could be useful for more difficult/niche observations” then I think most of us wouldn’t have objected. I also really don’t understand why you still aren’t sharing any links. Is this all LLM-generated without citations or something? Where are you getting your numbers?
      • nchmy 6mo ago
        Sauce or gtfo
  • Betelbuddy 6mo ago
    And you are going to provide the references that will sustain this opinion, so we can elevate it to a fact...
    • jatora 6mo ago
      Its fine to ask for sources. It's also fine to not give sources when relaying information in freeform comments. It's not fine to ask for sources in the tone you are using though, as though you are annoyed and simply expect sources to always be included with claims. There are better ways of accomplishing your goals.
      • Betelbuddy 6mo ago
        Someone drops very specific percentages about diagnostic accuracy....numbers that, if true, have serious implications for patient outcomes, and your concern is that I did not ask nicely enough for a source? I could not think of a more HN typical response... I did not even call the claim false, even if it almost deserve it...I said, essentially ...let's see the references so we can treat this as fact rather than opinion. What you did is write a longer and more prescriptive comment about my tone than anything anyone has written about the actual substance :-)). You tone policed a one line request for evidence while giving a complete pass to unsourced medical statistics presented as fact. If we are ranking things that erode discourse quality, I would say you are higher on the list.
        • jatora 6mo ago
          [flagged]
          • Betelbuddy 6mo ago
            Three comments in... and you still have not said a single word about whether radiologists actually catch 35% of diagnoses. But you have found time to call me passive aggressive, entitled, lazy, and immature. For one sentence. Asking for a source... You are now, multiple comments deep, doing the thing you accuse me of...being more invested in tone than substance. The irony is genuinely impressive at this point.
  • hattar 6mo ago
    I assume the numbers are made up as an example. I worry that rational takes like this end up completely lost in the battle between motivated parties who yell far louder, but have minimal investment in actual outcomes for those who will be depending on these technologies. The debate over self-driving vehicles is another example.
  • czbond 6mo ago
    ^ Knowing this, I would believe the best course of action for a hospital administrator would be to implement a "blind workflow" to reduce risk & lawsuits. A radiologist should separately review a scan, an AI separately review it, and then combine the 2 results for review.
  • camdenreslink 6mo ago
    I have seen very conflicting data on this. You shouldn’t state it so confidently.
  • orwin 6mo ago
    Maybe radiologist mean something different in my country, but here radiologist don't diagnose (i mean, except you see them for a broken bone or something), oncologist do. I did an observation internship with a radiologist when i was 20 (95% of my family are doctor/nurses/PT, i wanted to know what a degree in physics could help me do in the field, and radiologist was the only path to medecine from my initial formation where i only lost a year, and not two). You spend your time calculating doses, finding patient history, and calibrating machines, it's much more a technician role than a MD. In any case, and even if in the US radiologist diagnose cancer, that's such a small part of their job it shouldn't matter.
  • deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
  • yread 6mo ago
    Persuade someone to run a prospective trial and show the outcomes. Everything else is bullshit