Large Language Models in Medicine: The potential to reduce workloads, leverage the EMR for better communication & more

Adobe Stock / ART STOCK CREATIVE

Since the release of ChatGPT in November 2022, large language models (LLMs) have entered the mainstream and taken the world by storm. LLMs appear in the news frequently, with such headlines as “ChatGPT Passed the USMLE [U.S. medical license exam].”¹ What does this mean for medicine? How will artificial intelligence be integrated into the field, and will it eventually replace physicians?

The short answer is no: Physicians will not be replaced—at least not for the forseeable future. However, physicians need to learn how to effectively use LLMs and other technological advances to manage an ever-increasing workload and for the benefit of patients. This article explores the future of LLMs, such as ChatGPT, in medicine, while also addressing some of the associated legal concerns. 

What Are LLMs?

 Many of us have interacted with some form of artificial intelligence (AI). For example, Siri and Alexa are both forms of AI that many of us interact with daily.² According to an article from WEKA, generative AI is a type of machine learning that allows users to generate new content. LLMs are a specific type of generative AI focused on generating natural language text. LLMs are trained on large text datasets, including articles, books and websites. They learn the patterns and structures of language and use this knowledge to answer questions and generate written content. The text is called natural language because it is difficult to distinguish generative AI text from that written by a human.³

Recently, LLMs have become almost synonymous with ChatGPT; however, ChatGPT is not alone in the space. Other large language models include Jenni, Bing AI, CoPilot AI and DALL-E. Jenni advertises itself as being able to help users “write faster and better.” DALL-E generates art. Bing AI has integrated an LLM into its search engine. Copilot assists users by providing an autocomplete to help them generate code. However, for the scope of this article, we mainly focus on LLMs that generate natural language text, such as ChatGPT and Bard.

LLMs offer healthcare team members a wealth of possibilities, including summarizing information, generating patient-specific handouts & potentially suggesting diagnostic & treatment options in the future.

Uses in Medicine

LLMs’ strengths lie in their ability to summarize information. This can be helpful when physicians want to summarize topics for patients. For example, an LLM allows physicians to tailor handouts specifically to a patient’s individual needs. Although physicians need to check and proofread the summarized material generated by LLMs, the tool can significantly reduce the time and effort required to develop the handouts.