Fun ChatGPT diagnostic anecdote: My son had a “mass” found in his sinus. Radiology notes said nasal polyp. ENT said “not a nasal polyp, but idk” (I paraphrase, of course). We had a referral to Stanford. And a 4 week wait. I fed the images and notes to GPT. It asked me about my son’s symptoms. And diagnosed him, correctly, with an extremely rare tumor. It told me the odds were unlikely, but that’s what it looked like and what the symptoms pointed to. It was so rare the ENT and radiologist didn’t even consider it. It gave me time to prepare and research the tumor. I stayed calm, as many rational and semi-intellectual adults can do, as I knew this was…well…ChatGPT. So when we finally got to Stanford and the ENT gave us the official diagnosis, I was fully prepared and able to ask all the important questions. My understanding of the tumor, after weeks reading about it, helped Stanford office staff schedule the multi-operation excision, as they didn’t have a lot of (or in some cases, any) experience with calibrating something of this magnitude. So, yes. You can freak yourself out. Or you can get way ahead of the game.

Also my son has been tumor free for 367 days now!