Planned Gift of Estate Reflects Couple's Deep Commitment to Duke
In honor of their deep connection to Duke, Krista Patterson AB’03, JD’06, LLM’06, and Jonathan Wigser, MBA’94, have made a planned gift commitment of their estate to be split equally between the School of Medicine, Duke Cancer Institute, Duke Children’s, and Fuqua School of Business.
Study Provides Clues to Developing Better Treatments for Lung Damage
Scientists and clinicians at the Duke University School of Medicine have discovered new details about how lung tissue heals after injury caused by toxins such as air pollution or cigarette smoke.
Artificial Intelligence in Health Care: Promise and Pitfalls
Clinicians, researchers, and educators at Duke University School of Medicine and across Duke Health are using artificial intelligence (AI) to schedule surgeries more efficiently, give students immediate feedback on academic writing, and help speed up drug discovery.
Duke is at the leading edge of efforts to maximize the benefits of AI in health care while putting effective guardrails in place to minimize potential risks.
“We have a huge potential to reduce physician burden, increase health care efficiency, and improve the patient experience,” said Michael Pencina, PhD, director of Duke AI Health and chief data scientist for Duke Health. “But we need to be very intentional about what AI will be doing.”
ChatGPT Enters the Classroom
School of Medicine faculty are using the capabilities of ChatGPT, a chatbot that answers questions and generates text using natural language processing, to improve students’ learning experiences and assist with their own research. At the same time, they caution that monitoring and fact-checking the system are essential.
Unmasking Medical Misinformation: Taking Aim at False Health Claims
The internet, pervasive social media, and round-the-clock news sites have put a world’s worth of knowledge literally at our fingertips: with a click or two you can summon vast amounts of information about almost anything. Unfortunately, a lot of it is wrong. Duke researchers are working to combat false health claims.
Veterans: The Foundation of the PA Profession
The Physician Assistant Program touches base with the foundation of the PA profession: Veterans.
Alumni Making a Difference: William Stead, AB’70, MD’74, HS’73-’77
William Stead, AB’70, MD’74, HS’73-’77, is the McKesson Foundation Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Medicine at Vanderbilt University and is one of the founders of the field of biomedical informatics. In the 1970s, first as a medical student and then while a nephrology fellow and member of the faculty at Duke, Stead worked with Ed Hammond, BSEE’57, PhD’67, director of the Duke Center for Health Informatics, and others to build The Medical Record, one of the first practical electronic medical record systems.
Alumni Making a Difference: Erich Huang, PhD’02, MD’03, HS’03-’08
Erich Huang, PhD’02, MD’03, HS’03-’08, is head of clinical informatics at Verily, formerly Google Life Sciences. He has been a pathfinder since transitioning in 2016 from clinical care to biomedical informatics and later directing Duke Forge, an initiative to build a data science culture and infrastructure focused on actionable health data science across Duke University. In 2020 he was selected as Duke Health’s Chief Data Officer for Quality. Now the head of clinical informatics at Verily, formerly Google Life Sciences, his vision for the health care landscape remains centered on wielding artificial intelligence as a tool, not a replacement for the human touch.
Therapy Horses Provide Respite from Stress
The animal-assisted therapy group Stampede of Love brought two miniature horses to the Duke Medical Center Library to offer School of Medicine faculty, staff, and students the opportunity to relax, de-stress, and share some special moments and photo ops with the equine visitors.