AI is raising stakes for plastic surgery

Jan 30, 2024

By Daniel Payne, Ruth Reader and Erin Schumaker

OPERATING ROOM

For plastic surgeons, AI could mean more patients with higher expectations. | Getty Images

Artificial intelligence could turbocharge the social media glamour shot and create new demands — and customers — for plastic surgeons.

“Social media is already very influential in terms of what people expect [they] should look like at 20, at 30, at 40,” Dr. Steven Williams, president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, told Daniel.

Williams expects that as AI gets better at manipulating photographs and integrating with social media platforms, it will influence the requests plastic surgeons get — since patients’ self perceptions impact the work surgeons do.

Even so: It’s all an evolution. Not long ago, social media was the emerging technology giving people unrealistic expectations about beauty and aging.

Takeaway: “It’s going to be very, very challenging” for the surgeons, Williams said, since they’re likely to see updated “expectations of what is normal or what can be achieved.”

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This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s call for an FDA investigation of kids getting addicted to Zyn nicotine pouches sparked a backlash among Republican Zyn enthusiasts on Capitol Hill. The pouches, which users place between their gum and upper lip to get a hit, are becoming the latest front in the culture war, Intelligencer reports.

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EXAM ROOM

Doctors input information about their patients into their computers. | AP Photo

Most doctors are still doing things the pre-AI way, a survey found. | AP Photo

AI dominates discussions about health care’s future, but most doctors aren’t using it yet, according to a new survey from online provider community Sermo.

Though about half of the more than 100 health executives Sermo surveyed said they’re following AI’s development, far fewer — about a quarter — have implemented the technology.

Electronic health records management, medical imaging and predictive analytics were top targets of those using AI.

Even so: Most of the executives believe AI will grow in importance.

More than 90 percent predicted it will be integral to their operations in five years.

Still, 2024 likely isn't the year the technology hits critical mass. Only about a third of those surveyed said AI would play a significant role in their organization this year.

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WASHINGTON WATCH

The exterior of the Veterans Affairs Hospital is seen.

AI's arrived at the VA. | Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Veterans hospitals, like their private-sector counterparts, are starting to experiment with artificial intelligence.

Lawmakers are concerned the Department of Veterans Affairs doesn’t have the right safeguards in place.

“The VA struggles at every level to comply with the law and keep veterans’ health and personal and financial information secure,” said Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) during a hearing Monday of the Veterans’ Affairs Technology Modernization Subcommittee he chairs.

Ranking member Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Fla.) expressed similar concerns, noting that in the two years since the subcommittee held a hearing on data privacy, the VA has reported seven breaches affecting more than 4,000 veterans.

Why it matters: The VA is adopting artificial intelligence, which vacuums up data.

Since 2019, when the VA stood up the National Artificial Intelligence Institute, it has launched 15 to 20 projects, according to Gil Alterovitz, the institute’s director.

The institute aims to place staff with AI expertise in VA hospitals and leverage the tech to improve care.

Outside of the AI institute's pilots, VA physicians are starting to incorporate AI products into their workflow. That includes Medtronic’s GI Genius to identify colorectal cancer in imaging. VA hospitals are also using AI to suss out whether a veteran may be considering suicide.

Warning shot: Rosendale said the hospitals need to notify patients when AI is used in their care.

“A disclosure at the very beginning would be a very good start,” he said.

And the VA needs to do better securing veterans’ data, said Cherfilus-McCormick: “It is absolutely crucial that we do everything in our power to ensure that the data veterans have entrusted VA with is protected.”

Even so: The VA is thinking about transparency.

Alterovitz said the agency is piloting model cards, a sort of fact sheet for artificial intelligence applications that tells users in plain language what kind of data the AI was trained on, how effective it is, its drawbacks and under what circumstances it works best.

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