NEJM AI Grand Rounds
NEJM AI Grand Rounds, hosted by Arjun (Raj) Manrai, Ph.D. and Andrew Beam, Ph.D., features informal conversations with a variety of unique experts exploring the deep issues at the intersection of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and medicine. You’ll learn how AI will change clinical practice and healthcare, how it will impact the patient experience, and about the people who are pushing for innovation. Whether you are an AI researcher or a practicing clinician, these conversations will enlighten and surprise you as we journey through this very exciting field. Produced by NEJM Group.
Episodes
The OpenEvidence Episode: Dr. Travis Zack on the Future of Clinical Evidence
Dr. Travis Zack, Chief Medical Officer of OpenEvidence, takes us behind the scenes of the start and growth of the company, and brings a clinician’s perspective to one of medicine’s hardest questions: how should artificial intelligence support decision-making? In this episode, he emphasizes that reasoning—not just correctness—defines good care, and that evidence must be contextual, accessible, and
Doctronic’s Autonomous AI with Dr. Byron Crowe
Doctronic CMO Dr. Byron Crowe describes how administrative complexity can interfere with timely, effective treatment, and how AI may help address those challenges. Crowe discusses Doctronic’s use of autonomous AI to renew prescriptions, arguing that this application can streamline care while maintaining clinical oversight. For physicians, this shift raises important questions about workflow, respo
AI’s Next Frontier with Dr. Kyunghyun Cho
Dr. Kyunghyun Cho is a leading AI researcher best known for co-authoring a landmark 2014 paper that introduced neural machine translation. In this episode, he discusses his wide-ranging career spanning fundamental AI research, co-founding Prescient Design (acquired by Genentech), and driving applications of AI in health care. For clinicians, Cho’s core message is pragmatic: AI should help health c
Epic’s Approach to AI with Seth Hain
Clinical AI only helps patients if clinicians and health systems trust it. Seth Hain describes how Epic is building foundation models that respect institutional autonomy, minimize burden, and prioritize safety. He discusses scaling laws in structured medical data, cautious deployment for clinical interventions, and why understanding causality—not just correlation—is essential. This conversation re
Bridging AI and Biology to Tackle Medicine’s Hardest Problems with Dr. Marinka Zitnik
For Dr. Marinka Zitnik, the promise of AI in medicine begins with acknowledging the scale of the problem. Most patients with rare diseases have no approved treatments, and traditional drug development timelines make progress painfully slow. In this conversation, she describes how AI-driven drug repurposing offers a way to work within existing constraints while still opening new therapeutic possibi
What Values are in AI? A Conversation with Dr. Zak Kohane
For Dr. Zak Kohane, this year’s advances in AI weren’t abstract. They were personal, practical, and deeply tied to care. After decades studying clinical data and diagnostic uncertainty, he finds himself building his own EHR, reviewing his child’s imaging with AI, and re-thinking the balance between incidental and missed findings. Across each story is the same insight: clinicians and machines make
From Hindsight Bias to Machine Bias: Dr. Laura Zwaan on Learning from Mistakes
As a cognitive psychologist, Dr. Laura Zwaan studies how humans make—and learn from—mistakes. In this episode of NEJM AI Grand Rounds, she brings that lens to AI, showing how machines inherit our biases and why both need transparency and reflection. From the challenge of defining diagnostic error to the promise of “machine psychology,” Dr. Zwaan explores how human reasoning can inform safer algori
Medicine, Machines, and Magic: Dr. Jonathan Chen on Medical AI
In this episode, Dr. Jonathan Chen joins the hosts to discuss his path from teenage programmer to Stanford physician-informatician and why machine learning has both thrilled and unnerved him. From his 2017 NEJM essay warning about “inflated expectations” to his latest studies showing GPT‑4 outperforming doctors on diagnostic tasks, Dr. Chen describes a discipline learning humility at machine speed
From Clinician to Chief Health AI Officer: A Conversation with Dr. Karandeep Singh
Dr. Karandeep Singh brings two worlds together: programming and medicine. In this conversation, he explains how early experiments with code led him to biomedical informatics, why gaps between paper performance and clinical reality must be confronted, and how governance committees weigh ethics and safety. Now serving as Chief Health AI Officer at UC San Diego Health, he reflects on lessons from dep
Radiologist Turned CEO: Dr. Jeremy Friese on AI for Prior Authorization
Dr. Jeremy Friese knows medicine from both sides. A practicing radiologist and technology executive, he’s seen firsthand how administrative burden undermines care. In this episode of NEJM AI Grand Rounds, he walks through the origins of prior authorization, explains why he believes artificial intelligence can close the gap between patients and payers, and argues that real reform means showing your
Can AI Accelerate Science? Dr. Andy Beam on AI’s Next Frontier
Dr. Andy Beam has trained models, mentored scientists, and used data to quantify the value of treatments. In this episode of NEJM AI Grand Rounds, Raj Manrai turns the table on his co-host, reflecting on how Andy’s childhood misdiagnosis, and the failure of human recall, revealed the diagnostic promise of machine learning. As a Harvard professor, he mentored hybrid thinkers and built tools to eval
Google’s Efforts to Build Patient-Facing AI: A Conversation with Drs. Alan Karthikesalingam and Anil Palepu
In this episode of NEJM AI Grand Rounds, guests Drs. Alan Karthikesalingam and Anil Palepu of Google walk co-hosts Raj Manrai and Andy Beam through the making and evaluation of AMIE, an AI system designed to conduct clinical conversations with patients. Alan and Anil explain how AMIE was trained using synthetic doctor-patient interactions generated by LLMs playing multiple roles—doctor, patient, c
Rewriting the Clinical Playbook: Dr. Shiv Rao on Scaling Empathy with AI
Dr. Shiv Rao, cardiologist and CEO of Abridge, joins hosts Raj Manrai and Andy Beam on NEJM AI Grand Rounds for an inspiring conversation at the intersection of medicine, technology, and meaning. Shiv shares the origin story of Abridge, reflecting on how a deeply human encounter in clinic sparked the idea for a company now transforming clinical documentation across more than 100 health systems. Fr
Pixels to Protocols: Building the AI Future of Pathology with Dr. Faisal Mahmood
Dr. Faisal Mahmood, Associate Professor of Pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, joins hosts Raj Manrai and Andy Beam on NEJM AI Grand Rounds to explore the frontier of computational pathology. From pioneering foundational models for whole slide imaging to commercializing a multimodal generative AI copilot for pathology, Faisal shares how his team is redefining what
From Bedside to Boardroom: How AI, Multi-Omics, and New Business Models Are Shaping the Biomedical Frontier with Morgan Cheatham
Morgan Cheatham joins hosts Raj Manrai and Andy Beam on NEJM AI Grand Rounds to discuss the evolving landscape of artificial intelligence in health care, from its role in automating clinical documentation to its transformative potential in genomic medicine. A venture capitalist and future physician, Morgan shares how his background in computational decision sciences led him to medical school and i
From Clinical Notes to GPT-4: Dr. Emily Alsentzer on Natural Language Processing in Medicine
Dr. Emily Alsentzer joins hosts Raj Manrai and Andy Beam on NEJM AI Grand Rounds to discuss the evolution of natural language processing (NLP) in medicine. A Stanford faculty member and expert in clinical AI, Emily shares her journey from pre-med to biomedical AI, the role of language models in medical decision-making, and the ethical considerations surrounding bias in AI. The conversation explore
Health Care at the Breaking Point: Dr. Zak Kohane Returns to NEJM AI Grand Rounds
In this return appearance on NEJM AI Grand Rounds, Dr. Zak Kohane joins hosts Raj Manrai and Andy Beam to discuss the evolving landscape of AI in medicine. As the first repeat guest on the show, Dr. Kohane shares insights on health care system challenges, the Human Values Project, and his perspectives on the most significant AI developments of 2024. The conversation explores everything from the pr
The Economics of AI: A Conversation with Larry Summers
In this episode of NEJM AI Grand Rounds, hosts Raj Manrai and Andy Beam interview Larry Summers about artificial intelligence’s transformative potential and its implications for society. The conversation explores Summers’ perspective on AI as potentially the most significant technology ever invented, his role on OpenAI’s board following the November 2023 leadership transition, and his thoughts on
Partners in Diagnosis: ChatGPT, a Mother’s Intuition, and a Doctor’s Expertise with Courtney Hofmann and Dr. Holly Gilmer
In this episode of NEJM AI Grand Rounds, hosts Raj Manrai and Andy Beam interview Courtney Hofmann, a mother whose use of ChatGPT led to her son’s diagnosis of tethered cord syndrome after seeing 17 doctors over three years, and Dr. Holly Gilmer, the pediatric neurosurgeon who confirmed and treated the condition. The conversation explores how AI helped bridge diagnostic gaps, systemic health care
The Pulse of Progress: AI in Cardiology with Dr. David Ouyang
In this episode of NEJM AI Grand Rounds, hosts Raj Manrai and Andy Beam interview Dr. David Ouyang, a cardiologist and AI researcher at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. The conversation explores Ouyang’s journey from medical training to AI research and entrepreneurship, his groundbreaking work in applying AI to cardiology imaging, and the challenges of bringing AI innovations from academia to clinical
AI at the Frontlines: Dissecting Clalit’s Roadmap for the Future of Public Health with Noa Dagan and Ran Balicer
In this episode of NEJM AI Grand Rounds, hosts Raj Manrai and Andy Beam interview Dr. Noa Dagan and Dr. Ran Balicer from the Clalit Research Institute in Israel. The conversation explores Clalit’s groundbreaking work in implementing predictive models at the point of care, their contributions to COVID-19 research, and the potential of AI in revolutionizing public health. Dagan and Balicer discuss t
From Petri Dishes to Pitch Decks: Cultivating Health Care’s AI Future with Vijay Pande
In this episode of NEJM AI Grand Rounds, hosts Raj Manrai and Andy Beam interview Dr. Vijay Pande, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz (A16Z) where he leads investments in health care and life sciences. The conversation explores Pande’s journey from academia to venture capital, his views on the future of AI in health care and biomedicine, and insights into the investment landscape for biotech
Love and Large Language Models: Voices of the Future with Dr. Rohaid Ali and Dr. Fatima Mirza
In this episode of NEJM AI Grand Rounds, hosts Raj Manrai and Andy Beam interview Dr. Rohaid Ali and Dr. Fatima Mirza, a married couple and chief residents at Brown University. The conversation explores their innovative work applying AI to health care, focusing on two major projects:
Using ChatGPT to simplify surgical consent forms, making them more accessible to patients. This initiative led to
AI and the Evolution of Medical Thought with Dr. Adam Rodman
In this episode of the AI Grand Rounds podcast, Dr. Adam Rodman shares his unique journey from a historian to a physician deeply interested in the intersection of medicine and artificial intelligence. He highlights his unconventional path, driven by an obsession with epistemology and nosology, and his early exposure to AI through historical references and personal experiences with language models.
Translational AI in Medicine: Unlocking AI’s Potential in Health Care with Nigam Shah
In this episode of the NEJM AI Grand Rounds podcast, Dr. Nigam Shah, a distinguished Professor of Medicine at Stanford University and inaugural Chief Data Scientist for Stanford Health Care, shares his journey from training as a doctor in India to becoming a leading figure in biomedical informatics in the United States. He discusses the transformative impact of computational tools in understanding
From Theory to Therapy: The Evolution of AI in Medicine with Dr. Daphne Koller
In this episode of the AI Grand Rounds podcast, Dr. Daphne Koller charts her professional trajectory, tracing her early fascination with computers to her influential role in AI and health care. Initially intrigued by the capacity of computers for decision-making based on theoretical principles, Koller witnessed her niche area — once considered peripheral to AI — grow to dominate the field. Her cur
From Single Neurons to AI Systems: The Evolution of Decision Sciences in Medicine with Dr. Eric Horvitz
In this episode of the AI Grand Rounds podcast, Dr. Eric Horvitz describes his career evolution from an interest in neurobiology to significant contributions in AI, particularly in understanding complex systems and applying AI in medicine. He discusses the shift from studying neurobiology to embracing AI and computational methods as tools for unraveling the complexities of the human mind and broad
AI Frontiers with James Zou: The Future of Multi-Modal AI in Medicine
In this episode of the AI Grand Rounds podcast, Dr. James Zou shares his personal journey to discovering machine learning during his graduate studies at Harvard. Fascinated by the potential of AI and its application to genomics and medicine, Dr. Zou embarked on a journey that took him from journalism to the forefront of AI research. He has been instrumental at Stanford in translating machine learn
Interrogating AI Fairness and Bias in Dermatology and Beyond with Dr. Roxana Daneshjou
In this episode of the AI Grand Rounds podcast, Dr. Roxana Daneshjou shares her journey from a childhood influenced by early exposure to science to her current role as an assistant professor at Stanford. Her path includes a critical shift during medical school, where her interest in computational methods and human genomics led her to pursue both an M.D. and a Ph.D. Her specialization in dermatolog
Medicine as a Knowledge Processing Discipline with Dr. Zak Kohane
In this episode, Dr. Zak Kohane shares his journey into AI and medicine, reflecting on early influences from science fiction authors and programming experiences in his youth. He discusses his academic path, moving from programming and machine instruction to medical school, driven partly by practical advice and personal ambition. Kohane highlights his realization during medical school that medicine
Examining Open-Source Frameworks and AI in Medicine with Interventional Radiologist Dr. Judy Gichoya
In this episode, Dr. Judy Wawira Gichoya, Associate Professor in the Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences at Emory University School of Medicine, details her journey from Kenya to the United States, from interventional radiology to artificial intelligence.
Transcript.
Machines & Genes: The Future of AI in Biology with Dr. George Church
In this episode, vanguard geneticist Dr. George Church recounts his storied career from his early fascination with computers and science to his pioneering work in genomics and synthetic biology. Dr. Church developed innovative DNA sequencing methods that enabled the first sequencing of the human genome. He was also instrumental in developing CRISPR gene editing technology. Dr. Church discusses his
Mark Cuban on AI, Trust in Health Care, and Skip Bayless
In this episode, we’re joined by business magnate and investor Mark Cuban. Cuban describes his journey from humble beginnings as a self-taught programmer to becoming a successful serial entrepreneur and owner of an NBA team. Cuban shares the founding story of his pharmacy benefits company, Cost Plus Drugs, and his vision for reimagining the reimbursement system for care. He also articulates why he
An Iron Fist in a Velvet Glove: A Conversation with Dr. Atul Butte
In this episode, pioneering informatician Dr. Atul Butte guides listeners through his storied career, from his early days as a pediatric endocrinologist and informatician in Boston to his trailblazing work on the West Coast. Dr. Butte describes his trailblazing efforts to both harness large-scale public biomedical data and share patient data across the entire UC Health System. Dr. Butte also discu
The Double-Edged Sword of AI, with Dr. Ziad Obermeyer
In this thought-provoking episode, Dr. Ziad Obermeyer delves into the complex issues of bias, safety, and generalizability of medical AI. Dr. Obermeyer emphasizes the importance of machine learning researchers’ task formulation, an often-overlooked yet significant determinant of bias in AI algorithms. Highlighting the dual impact of machine learning, he compares two of his works that demonstrate h
Can AI Be Harmful? A Conversation with MIT’s Dr. Marzyeh Ghassemi
Dr. Marzyeh Ghassemi has been at the forefront of medical machine learning for several years. In this episode, she describes her group’s work and her perspectives on developing and applying machine learning to understand and improve health in ways that are robust, private, and fair. Dr. Ghassemi is an Assistant Professor at MIT in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the Institute for M
Google’s Exploration of Large Language Models in Medicine
Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT have proven highly capable of a broad array of natural language tasks including summarizing text, generating prose, and answering questions. This episode’s two guests, Dr. Alan Karthikesalingam and Vivek Natarajan of Google, describe their team’s recent efforts to adapt and evaluate LLMs for clinical applications. Alan and Vivek took very different paths t
No Doctor Needed? Dr. Michael Abramoff on the Potential of Autonomous AI
Dr. Michael Abramoff is a renowned ophthalmologist and medical AI pioneer. In this episode, we explore his groundbreaking work that led to the first FDA-authorized device that does not require a physician, IDx-DR, which detects more than mild diabetic retinopathy from digital images of the eye. Dr. Abramoff also reflects on the challenges of commercialization, AI reimbursement, and the ethical imp
The GPT-4 Episode: Microsoft’s Peter Lee on the Future of Language Models in Medicine
Dr. Peter Lee has shaped computer science from academia, government, and industry. He has chaired a major computer science department, built a new technology office at DARPA, and now serves as Corporate Vice President at Microsoft, where he leads Microsoft Research and its nine worldwide laboratories. In this episode, Peter reveals Microsoft’s interest in health care and the origins of the OpenAI
Dr. Lily Peng: AI for Ophthalmology and the Challenges of AI in the Real World
Dr. Lily Peng has driven major medical AI efforts along the long and arduous path from ideation to deployment. From publishing a landmark study in 2016 presenting an AI model to detect diabetic retinopathy in retinal fundus photographs to evaluating deep learning systems in India and Thailand, she has a unique and wide-ranging perspective on both model development and real-world validation. She co
Dr. Pranav Rajpurkar on AI and Radiology
Dr. Pranav Rajpurkar has been at the forefront of medical AI for his entire career. As a graduate student in computer science at Stanford, he created some of the first AI models for radiology and created a suite of datasets and benchmarks that have been widely used by researchers across the world. Now, as a faculty member at Harvard, his group has continued to push the frontier of medical AI acros
Dr. Euan Ashley on AI, Genomics, and Cardiology
Dr. Euan Ashley is a pioneer. In 2010, he led the team that conducted the first clinical interpretation of a human genome, and he holds the record for the world’s fastest genomic diagnosis. He even has a Guinness World Record to prove it. In this wide-ranging discussion, Dr. Ashley shares the stories behind these feats, his experiences applying artificial intelligence to genomics and to cardiology
Trailer: Introducing NEJM AI Grand Rounds Podcast
[Transcript]
How will AI change clinical practice and healthcare, and how will it impact the patient experience? Who are the people pushing for change and what are their goals? These are just a few of the topics that we hope to explore on NEJM AI Grand Rounds, a new podcast from NEJM Group. This podcast will be an informal conversation with a variety of unique experts exploring the deep issues at
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