Bob Wachter

Today on Freakonomics Radio, AI and a giant leap into the future of healthcare.

We could probably make 10 episodes looking at AI in healthcare, but if we want to do it in a single episode, which we do, it's helpful to speak to someone who is able to frame the biggest questions well.

Someone like this.

I'm Dr. Robert Wachter.

Although he says we should call him Bob.

and I'm professor and chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

And what does that job entail?

What that is is running a large department of about 1,000 doctors, everything from geriatricians and primary care doctors to cardiologists and oncologists, and we do research, education, and take care of lots and lots of patients.

You're still a practicing clinician as well.

Is that true?

Correct.

About one month a year, I do this thing, a field that I actually started called hospitalist.

So about one month a year, I take care of very sick people in the hospital.

What's your medical specialty by training?

I trained in internal medicine, then did fellowship training in epidemiology and policy and ethics.

But I'm an internal medicine doctor, which in the old days meant you took care of patients in clinic and in the hospital.

And then in part because of this specialty that I kind of cooked up about 30 years ago, those things have gotten divided.

And we have separate doctors for the most part who take care of hospitalized patients.

That's what I do.

And how did you become a hospitalist and then kick off this field of hospitalists?