Only about 12% of people are fully health literate, and more of us are now asking ChatGPT to explain a diagnosis before we ask a doctor. Dr. Terry Adirim — pediatric emergency physician, former Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, and author of The Prepared Patient — has one firm rule about that, plus a clear-eyed take on who's accountable when AI enters the exam room and why the best health AI is built with clinicians, not around them.
Dr. Terry Adirim has seen healthcare from three seats most people never occupy at once — the exam room, the Pentagon, and the federal policy table. A pediatric emergency physician who led health-IT modernization at the VA and served as Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, she now writes for patients: her book The Prepared Patient is a field guide to navigating a system that expects you to advocate for yourself. In this conversation with Chris Hutchins, she draws a hard line on medical privacy in the ChatGPT era, unpacks who is accountable when AI enters the exam room, and makes the case that the best health AI is designed with clinicians, not around them.