A fifth of family doctors (GPs) seem to have readily incorporated AI into their clinical practice, despite a lack of any formal guidance or clear work policies on the use of these tools, suggest the findings of an online UK-wide snapshot survey, published in the open access journal BMJ Health & Care Informatics . Doctors and medical trainees need to be fully informed about the pros and cons of AI, especially because of the inherent risks of inaccuracies ('hallucinations'), algorithmic biases, and the potential to compromise patient privacy , conclude the researchers. Following the launch of ChatGPT at the end of 2022, interest in large language model-powered chatbots has soared, and attention has increasingly focused on the clinical potential of these tools, say the researchers.
To gauge current use of chatbots to assist with any aspect of clinical practice in the UK, in February 2024 the researchers distributed an online survey to a randomly chosen sample of GPs registered with the clinician marketing service Doctors.net.uk.
The survey had a predetermined sample size of 1,000. The doctors were asked if they had ever used any of the following in any aspect of their clinical practice: ChatGPT; Bing AI; Google's Bard; or "Other." And they were subsequently asked what they used these tools for.
Some 1,006 GPs completed the survey: just over half the responses came from men (531; 53%) and a similar proportion of respondents (544;54%) were aged 46 or older. One in five (205; 20%) .