The @UCSF Management of the Hospitalized Patient course returns for it's 30th year! 🎉 Chaired by @Bob_Wachter, the course highlights recent evidence & current controversies, & blends lectures with multiple interactive workshops. 🔗 Register now:

I am grateful to the legendary @Bob_Wachter of @UCSF for spending some time with an advance copy of “The Moral Alibi.” I appreciate his comments: “We have come to accept a healthcare system that underperforms with stunning regularity. Jain argues, persuasively, that this is less the product of bad people than of good people averting their eyes. In refusing to avert his own, he has produced a masterwork of moral courage.” Learn more about the book and preorder it at its website:

Three of my favorite thinkers (and most lucid communicators) on healthcare and AI chat about many of the key issues: @peteratmsr, @CALonghurst, and @chrissyfarr. Worth a listen.

We're in the midst of a Category 5 AI backlash that will likely slow the progress of frontier models. Fine – the frontier can wait. But given healthcare's problems with quality, safety, access, & cost, thoughtful adoption there can't. My latest Substack:

Now that we've hit Peak AI Backlash, I'm resurfacing my May Substack on what happens to healthcare AI in the face of a major AI backlash. Up until now, healthcare has been the one area in which the public has been unambiguously enthusiastic about AI.

Loved talking healthcare AI with @DhruvKhullar and @brindaadhikari (and team) on the "Why Should I Trust You?" podcast (@WSITYpod). On the menu: should patients trust AI, impact on med ed, who's liable when it errs – and, inevitably, whither doctors.

I’m thrilled to announce that Wiley is publishing my forthcoming new book, The Moral Alibi. For most of my career, I believed I have working to make American healthcare better. I worked in government, academia, pharma, care delivery, and health insurance. In every role, I saw good people working hard inside institutions that routinely failed the people they were supposed to serve. I also learned how easily we explain those failures away. The regulations made us do it. The economics and incentives have left us no choice. The system is too complicated. Someone else owns the problem. These explanations are often true. They are also alibis that absolve of us of our own responsibility to make things better. My new book, “The Moral Alibi: How Healthcare Learned to Look Away—and How We Learn to See Again,” is not just another critique of American healthcare. It is also a self-indictment and a confession. The book comes out February 16, 2027 Today, I’m launching the book’s website, where I’ll share more about the ideas behind it and the conversation I hope it provokes. I hope you’ll take a look and pre-order your copy today.

Grateful to The HealthTech Signal for placing me at #2# on its list of 100 health tech influencers. There are many worse fates than trailing @EricTopol, and the list includes many of the folks I follow for health tech/AI insights.

In @WIRED, @StevenLevy dives into the "Will we need MDs?" debate, fueled by the recent @ZekeEmanuel @VinodKhosla @nealkhosla & @AbeBakerButler @JAMA_current article. I'm quoted, and Zeke describes how his interest in AI vs. MD came from reading my book.

I agreed with much of the controversial @JAMA_current piece on autonomous AI by @ZekeEmanuel @vkhosla @nealkhosla & @AbeBakerButler. Given a clean set of clinical facts, AI will often beat MDs on dx & Rx. But there's far more to the story. My new Substack:

“I would prefer that we develop AI tools that don’t give trainees the answer,” says #AAMC26# speaker @Bob_Wachter. In our latest Q&A, read how he envisions integrating #AI# in training while avoiding “de-skilling” among those who over-rely on the technology.

30 years ago today, L Goldman & I coined the term "hospitalist" in @NEJM. I suspected the field would matter; I didn't guess it would be the fastest-growing specialty in US history. To the docs who turned an idea into something real–& now essential–thanks!

My latest Substack: the irony of @ChatGPT Health's launch (it's awfully good) coming the same week as the first big lawsuit alleging a serious misdiagnosis caused by AI (in this case, GPT-4o). What does it all mean for the future of patient-facing AI?

As I see more MDs leave traditional medicine to start conceirge/prevention practices ( & read about cos like the one @andykessler profiles today I suspect @Bob_Wachter's prediction we're headed to 2-tier system will be correct.

A privilege to be interviewed by @mdhowellmd, @Google's Chief Health Officer, for the great "Talks@Google" series. Great questions, including on the shortcomings of the current healthcare system & the history of prior efforts at digital transformation.

Of the many interviews I've done on AI and healthcare, this one (at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley) may be my favorite. The interviewer is the wonderful journalist and author @katiehafner, who happens to be my wife. @ComputerHistory

Thrilled that my friend and colleague Andy Josephson will be the next dean of @UCSF School of Medicine. Brilliant clinician, gifted teacher, and one of the warmest people I know – a perfect fit for the moment. Can't wait to work with him in this role.

🚨I have a new book coming out October 20: Co-Existence! It is about how we live & work with AIs that are sometimes (but not always) smarter than we are. And it has a cool cover. You can pre-order: And here is a post with context: