Alexandra Sifferlin

you know, basically almost like putting their ear to the body and then you have the stethoscope and then you have ultrasound and now you have ultrasound with maybe some AI on top of it.

And in some ways that makes sense.

Like why wouldn't a physician use the technologies available to them?

But I think where some of the experts who I spoke to in my book are very concerned is that

What is the correct balance here?

Is a physician turning towards the ultrasound because they just want to use that and think it'll be a faster answer than actually doing the work of listening to the heart or feeling the body in ways where they could probably get to the diagnosis faster?

through that physical exam, and it would be less expensive, and it might be faster.

And is that a skill that is maybe being lost that we should be concerned about?

And I think there is some debate, like there's some interesting data about, you know, perhaps there are aspects of the physical exam that aren't as important as they were decades or even longer.

But I think the lack of

sort of focus at the bedside of the relationship between the physician and the patient of that really listening to what the patient is saying, really feeling like the physician is hearing you.

And just this idea that there are a lot of things that you can pick up just from the

being in the room with someone for a little while.

So one of the physicians I speak to in the book is Dr. Brian Garibaldi, and he is now at Northwestern University.

He was at Johns Hopkins for a very long time.

And he is very invested in the best ways to continue the physical exam.

So he often, when he's seeing a patient for the first time, he talks about how he will sometimes try to meet them in the waiting room.

Because then he can follow them into his office and he can watch how they walk.

He can watch how they carry themselves.

He can see, do they sort of wince when they're sitting down in the chair?