AI is reshaping how patients access health information and healthcare. getty

It’s 1961. A middle-aged housewife named Mary, worn down by months of unrelenting fatigue, finally visits her family physician. He interviews and curtly examines her, then orders blood tests. When the results reveal severe anemia, he has his nurse call with instructions to see a gynecologist, deciding not to trouble Mary with the details. More tests follow. A week later, the family physician calls to say she needs a hysterectomy, never mentioning the word “cancer,” a standard practice at the time. With her doctor holding all the medical knowledge, she could only wait for whatever he chose to share.

American medicine had long rested on this implicit “ grand bargain .” Physicians monopolized knowledge, promi

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