When AI Writes Back: Ethical Considerations by Physicians on AI-Drafted Patient Message Replies
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arXiv
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2025
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| _version_ | 1866916906001235968 |
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| author | Hu, Di Guo, Yawen Cho, Ha Na Chow, Emilie Mukamel, Dana B. Sorkin, Dara Reikes, Andrew Perret, Danielle Pandita, Deepti Zheng, Kai |
| author_facet | Hu, Di Guo, Yawen Cho, Ha Na Chow, Emilie Mukamel, Dana B. Sorkin, Dara Reikes, Andrew Perret, Danielle Pandita, Deepti Zheng, Kai |
| contents | The increasing burden of responding to large volumes of patient messages has become a key factor contributing to physician burnout. Generative AI (GenAI) shows great promise to alleviate this burden by automatically drafting patient message replies. The ethical implications of this use have however not been fully explored. To address this knowledge gap, we conducted a semi-structured interview study with 21 physicians who participated in a GenAI pilot program. We found that notable ethical considerations expressed by the physician participants included human oversight as ethical safeguard, transparency and patient consent of AI use, patient misunderstanding of AI's role, and patient privacy and data security as prerequisites. Additionally, our findings suggest that the physicians believe the ethical responsibility of using GenAI in this context primarily lies with users, not with the technology. These findings may provide useful insights into guiding the future implementation of GenAI in clinical practice. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_13217 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | When AI Writes Back: Ethical Considerations by Physicians on AI-Drafted Patient Message Replies Hu, Di Guo, Yawen Cho, Ha Na Chow, Emilie Mukamel, Dana B. Sorkin, Dara Reikes, Andrew Perret, Danielle Pandita, Deepti Zheng, Kai Computers and Society Human-Computer Interaction The increasing burden of responding to large volumes of patient messages has become a key factor contributing to physician burnout. Generative AI (GenAI) shows great promise to alleviate this burden by automatically drafting patient message replies. The ethical implications of this use have however not been fully explored. To address this knowledge gap, we conducted a semi-structured interview study with 21 physicians who participated in a GenAI pilot program. We found that notable ethical considerations expressed by the physician participants included human oversight as ethical safeguard, transparency and patient consent of AI use, patient misunderstanding of AI's role, and patient privacy and data security as prerequisites. Additionally, our findings suggest that the physicians believe the ethical responsibility of using GenAI in this context primarily lies with users, not with the technology. These findings may provide useful insights into guiding the future implementation of GenAI in clinical practice. |
| title | When AI Writes Back: Ethical Considerations by Physicians on AI-Drafted Patient Message Replies |
| topic | Computers and Society Human-Computer Interaction |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.13217 |