Doctors and specialist appointments are expensive and also they're quite short. So today Neo and I share how to use AI to make the most of that precious time, from getting your story straight before the appointment, to making sense of any test results, and to walking in with clear, smart questions instead of walking away from the appointment kicking yourself for not asking something. AI can help you be more prepared,
more confident, and more calm. We also talk privacy tips and the best tools to record and transcribe your consultation so that nothing gets missed.
Welcome to how IAI.
With me Doctor Amantha Imber and Neo Applin, head of Inventium AI. Each episode we share one practical way to use AI better at work and in life. No fluff, no tech jargon, just things you can use straight away. So, Neo, you recently helped your mum prepare for a specialist doctor's appointment that she had, and I want to talk through that process of how you actually coached her through it to use AI to make the most of that. You know, obviously very precious time when you're in with a specialist.
So let's start at the.
Beginning in terms of you know, I think like, whenever we see any kind of a medical professional, a lot of us can be really rambly's you know, we often feel like there's so much data to share and a lot of it is actually not super relevant.
So let's start there.
How can we use AI to help succinctly share what we need to with the doctor?
Yeah, to be able to get that story really straight but also mercifully short, because mersively, for you and the specialist, you want to spend more time actually getting a solution than talking about the problem. Right, So the way you can do that is get AI to basically you ramble to the AI and then get AI to simplify that to put that in a chronological set of events if that's what really matters, or it could be a list of symptoms that are kind of grouped. You could work
with AI on those kind of things. So what it's about is getting your story straight and short. Now, maybe that's something you might want to print out and to give to the specialist. That's one way you could do that. Or you could have as like a little spiel that you can almost practice yourself, because telling them that you felt this when you're playing tennis three days ago, the
tennis bit probably doesn't matter. Just talk about exactly what's gone wrong, and so you can get start talking turkeys sooner with your doctor. So yeah, getting your story straight. Work with AI to be able to simplify that doubt, and.
So I imagine one of the best ways to do that would be using advanced voice mode on chat GPT. So I know I use that a lot on the chatpt mobile app, where they've actually they've changed the user interface recently, which is a bit weird.
But anyway, there is.
A button that's essentially on the bottom right hand side that if you press that you can start having a chat.
How would you be prompting the.
AI to interview you, like, is there a persona you'd get it to adopt?
How would you start that conversation?
Give it a goal, which is always a good idea. So, Hey, I want to prepare for a doctor's interview, a doctor's appointment, or a specialist appointment. It's this kind of doctor, this kind of specialist, and I want to be able to sixankly tell the story of what's going on with me
and my body. So I'm going to tell you everything, and then what I want you to do is ask any questions you might have about things that maybe I didn't cover or I covered not well enough, so that eventually you can then produce a sixcinct summary of my past history so that my doctor will have all the information they need to be able to successfully treat me.
Something like that. Okay, it's a conversation. It's like you're talking to an interviewer from the age or the Telegraph or whatever and say, hey, look, you need to know everything. Just interview me please. So that's an easy way to start it. The actual chat thing, there's a couple of ways you can do it. You don't need the advanced voice mode, although that is great. That's when you and AI have a chat, you talk to it, it talks
back to you. You can also just cheat and dictate as well, because some of the AIS don't have that advanced voice mode. So there's a dictate button looks like a microphone. The advanced voice mode looks like a wiggly wave like on usually. So you just hit the dictate button and then you just speak at it. So if you're not a big typer like a lot of people, just talk at your AI. It'll dictate it for you. It'll then ask you a couple of questions and things like that, it's quickest way.
Through, okay, and then at the end, what are we asking the AI for so that we know we do have that artifact if you like that we can take to the doctors.
Yeah, so it'd be produce a summary that I could give to my doctor or I could read to my doctor, and you could even it depends on how you want it. Like, maybe you want it to be chronological, so then make sure it's in chronological or make sure it covers the main beat. So whatever you want it to look like or sound like, tell AI to do that, But will then give you that summary maybe an easy dot points or whatever, so you can then take that copy that, get it to even exporter as a PDF that you
can even give to your doctor if you want. Up to you what you want to do with it from there. But it's all about getting that story straight and succinct.
Yeah, I do like the idea of actually bringing it as a print out to the doctor because obviously people can read faster than you know, they can talk or listen to someone talking to them makes it really efficient so that we can have the majority of the appointment and doctors of women's The specialist appointments very expensive, so you want the majority to be around the diagnosis and
the solutioning. Now, sometimes before appointments, you will have access to the results that you're going in to talk about. So tell tell me how we can use AI to understand results and help us prepare for that appointment.
Understanding it is key. So I'll aways go for blood tests. We've all had blood tests at some stage, and if you've ever had a blood test, Sometimes you get the blood test results before the doctor's appointment, and maybe one of them looks red where Medi'm low on something or you're high on something. I don't know, and you might look at it and go, I don't know, I'm going to make up one like neutrophils. What the hell is a neutral fill? I don't know, but I've got too many,
or I've got don't have enough. I don't know whatever it is. And so then you can ask AI what is a neutral feel? And if I'm low, what does that mean? And so you can understand what this means. This is really good for a couple of things, because doctors are and specialists in particular that they're awesome at their their space, their skills, but sometimes some of them
are not awesome to using human speak. They'll use specialists speak, and so I'll say, neuture fields are blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, and then that's you've got right. So if you can somehow I unders what these terms are before the appointment, you're in a better position to actually understand what's going to go on in the appointment
and know potentially where the conversation is going to go. Now, with this, I always say, if you get something rad on a test, or you get some kind of results back or whatever, and you give it to AI, don't do what all of us do on Google, which is go digging and say what's wrong with me and find me the problem and oh my god, I'm going to
die tomorrow and I've got kads. No, because if you're going deep into Google, you'll find that you've got so many ailments and your leg's going to drop off Tomorrow's right. So don't do that with a AI, because AI can do that as well. Right, Don't get it to do the diagnosis for you. That's what doctors are for. Use AI as your buddy to understand the process around your medical processes. So understand the results, prepare for that doctor's chat.
Those kind of things really good. Help you make sense of what's been discussed, Really good for that, But the actual diagnosis, leave that to the humans.
Now. One of the things that I'm sure listeners are thinking, what about the privacy of my data?
Am I?
Like? Should I be uploading my very personal medical results up into the internet? Like what is your view on this? What should and shouldn't we do?
Yeah? The first thing is whichever AI you are using, if you can lock it.
Down, what does that mean? Lock it down?
Generally, if you're on a paid plan, you can find in settings there is usual like a data privacy or controls or something like that where you can say, do not use my data for training your model. So what that basically means is don't use my data for I don't know, JGBT five point three, the next model or you know, Model six or whatever it might be, or the next version of the Google Gemini models or whatever
it is. Because if you don't uncheck that, they'll put that into the model, which means that potentially I might be able to say, what's Stephen Smith's latest blood test? Results, and the model actually might come up with your actual blood test results, which is not really great. So you can in some of these models you can say, don't use my data for training, even on the free plan. Others are you do need to pay to be able
to do that. But jump in there looking at your settings, looking the personalization or your privacy and turn that off. So it's the first thing. The second thing is does AI need all of your blood test results? Probably not, So what you may want to do is be you know how we go. So I've got a friend who has a problem with their boss, right, and you know, and I know that the friend is you. Right, you do the same thing with AI. Don't say my name
is Neo Applin and I've got low calcium or whatever. Right, Don't do that. Instead, just go if someone was low in calcium, then right, you're getting the learning or they low and counseling mean they've I've got ten parts per million of blah blah blahs. Then a I will give you the knowledge without tying that knowledge necessarily to you. So that's another way to do it. So I do the same thing when I'm looking at industry research and companies or whatever, I use ACME Incorporated, and I use
if a person. You're like, it doesn't need to know all the details, so yeah, just deidentify that as much as you feel comfortable, right, But yeah, you could totally upload your blood test results. It'll be able to read all those kinds of things, but it really doesn't need all of them, so I just be really generic with it. It doesn't need to know all those details. Just talk about those the calcium tests or whatever it is you're wanting to look at.
Something else you could do is just screenshot the section of the report that you wanted to look at and make sure that you have no identifying details on that screenshot. That is a really simple hack that I've definitely used before. Now, when we go to the doctors, I know you and I probably on the over preparing side of the continuum of people that exist in this world.
But how can people use.
Or prepare for a doctor's appointment in terms of using AI to know how to use the time with that doctor.
And this is really what I was working with Mum, because Mum's got it the getting the story straight. She understands the results and all those kind of things. But often we get into the doctor's appointment, we're hearing a lot of things. We might ask a couple of questions, which is like, oh, what does that mean? Or should I be worried? And then we walk out of there and have you ever had that time where you go, I wish i'd ask that question? Why didn't I ask
that question? And then you're kicking yourself because that's another two hundred do dollars and six months time all those kinds of things. So working with AI to turn your understanding of things, your symptoms and about the calcium thing into a set of questions so that you're prepared with
better questions for your doctor, for your specialist. And that's really key because it then means you're helping them to understand the problem by explaining it really well, but you're also asking intelligent questions so then you know what the treatment options are, where the risks on each of these treatment options, Like if I have this medication, does it then play with that medication? All those kind of things? Or if I take this medication, how often do I
need to take it? All those kind of things you need to ask them. You can get that known and have that conversation while you're in the room. So yeah, get AI to work with you on a bunch of questions that you could ask based upon getting a story straight and all those kind of things, and you can say, maybe here's my options, my treatment options. I think I've got what questions could I ask if the doctor said treatment option A versus treatment option B. So maybe there's
the watch and wait, Okay, what do I do? And when do I then stop watching and waiting and then come back to see you. Maybe there's some of the questions you could get. Yeah.
That And I actually think I know that sometimes your parents listen to you. I think we have this or we all have this experience where parents sometimes listen and sometimes they don't, but they definitely listen to you on that, but ultimately they're listening to the AI. So I really loved that your mum actually took that advice on board.
Such good advice. Now, at the doctor's appointment.
Something that I know that we both do in our personal lives is we will always record the doctor's appointment. Obviously you need to ask permission to do so.
And some specialists and doctors said yeah, no, yeah, yeah.
I found like ninety five percent of the time doctors and specialists are fine with it. Firstly, what software do you recommend people use when they are recording? And yeah, what do you what do you recommend?
Yeah, before we go to the software, can I say why? And I think it's really important?
Yeah?
Yeah, yeah. So the why is you often get a lot of information set to you at a short period of time, and particularly if some of the information, like maybe tough information coming through right where it's hey, your heart's not as good as it used to be. That's not a good thing to hear, and then you might be just ruminating in your head while the rest of
the information is coming and you'll just miss that. So getting some kind of recording of it is so important for you to play that back, whether it be playback what the doctor said, but also might be like treatment options. It might be how many times you take that pill or do which exercise if you're talking to a SA physio, those kind of things. So recording it or getting some kind of a dictation or a transcript of what they said is really important. So then it comes to the software.
The software you have is the best software that I could recommend. What I mean by that is, don't feel like you can't go to a doctor's appointment if you don't have the right software. Look, each phone has a audio recorder thing on it, Like there's voice memo on the Apple phones, and I know the Samsungs and all the Androids. I've also got the similar kind of thing. So even just putting in your voice recorder in there on the table,
that's a good start. And particularly with the Apple ones these days, you can even get a transcript of that. There's like your next to the recording, you hit a three dot points and it says get transcripts. So recent phone for that only, but you can actually get the transcript of that out if you need to. But if you want to go next level a little bit, because you know, we're a little bit geeky, so let's let's do that. I love Otter and Fireflies. There are two
tools that are out there. They're actually meeting applications, So it's really good for if you've got a meeting with someone, you can put your phone on the on the middle of the table and it will record the meeting and it'll also give you the transcript of the meeting, and you can even ask questions of the AI. In these tools,
of the transcript. So great for meetings, but really good for doctor's appointments too, because you might be, hey, when they talked about my vitamin C levels, they say about that, and then it'll come through to the vitamin C levels of vitamin B or whatever. It is so great for getting the transcript, great for you to ask questions. And both Order and Fireflies have a free tear as well, so don't feel like you have to pay for these things.
They're really quite excellent. And the other one, which is your favorite and I know you go talking on future episodes, is Granola.
Yeah, my go to is Granola. I do love it. It doesn't actually record voice or video like Otter and Firefliers do. It literally just gives you a transcript of the words, and then it makes it really easy. It gives you an automatic summary and you can then interact with the transcript as well and ask any questions.
So I love that.
Neo. Thank you so much for sharing how we can all use AI to prepare better and get more out of that very precious time when we are seeing some kind of a specialist or medical professional. Listeners, if you have more questions about Hey, can I use AI for health because there's so many different applications, certainly ones that Neo and I use in our lives. Please send your questions through There is an email address in the show.
Notes, and thank you so much for listening.
If you found this useful, please help us spread the AI love and share it with someone who you think would benefit from knowing what you now know. And if you're ready to really start mastering AI, check out inventium dot AI. We help individuals, teams, and organizations turn JENAI into a real work superpower, saving ten plus hours a week and staying future ready without the jargon or overwhelmed. Thanks so much for listening and we'll see you next time on how IAI. How IAI was hosted by me
Amantha Imber and Neo Applan. A big thank you to Martin Imba who does our sound editing, and Jem Rubio for production support, and thank you to John Kilby who composed the theme music