Hyderabad Psychiatrist flags risks of AI-generated health reports
Patient Turns to ChatGPT for Diagnosis, Hyderabad Doctor Raises Alarm
Hyderabad: Amid a growing trend of patients turning to artificial intelligence for medical guidance, a Hyderabad-based government psychiatrist has warned about the risks of relying on AI-generated reports instead of medical consultation.
Dr Raghuveer Raju Boosa, assistant professor of psychiatry at the Institute of Mental Health, said a 30-year-old IT employee arrived for his first consultation carrying a detailed, 10-page report generated using ChatGPT. The patient had entered his symptoms into the AI tool and answered a series of questions, attempting to establish his medical condition based on the generated output.
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Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, Dr Boosa explained that the tool “over validates and invalidates a lot of symptoms. For example, if you say you have a headache, it may suggest a brain bleed as one possibility, though not with this severity.” The patient was eventually diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) with health-related obsessions, accompanied by illness anxiety features. “They constantly worry—‘I believe I have an illness, I have a headache, I have a body ache,’” he said.
In contrast, the AI-generated report had suggested possibilities such as electrolyte imbalance, endocrine disorders, and nutritional deficiencies. The patient has since been placed under appropriate treatment and is reportedly responding well.
Dr Boosa cautioned that this is not an isolated incident. According to Deccan Chronicle, “We often observe patients dropping my prescription into ChatGPT. This is personal information, and we never know what the platform is doing with those details,” psychiatrists warned.
Medical Dialogues had previously reported that in a shocking incident that has angered local residents, a 38-year-old woman died after two men pretending to be doctors allegedly performed a so-called stone removal surgery on her abdomen by following YouTube tutorial videos.
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