AI Could Reinvent Medicine--Or Become a Patient's Nightmare

In the 1880s, when the world-renowned Mayo Clinic was still a young fraternal surgical practice in the newish state of Minnesota, its doctors scribbled notes about their patients into heavy, leather-bound ledgers. But in 1907, a physician there named Henry Plummer came up with something better. He thought the episodes of a patient's medical history should all be in one place, not scattered between many doctors' journals. So he introduced a new system, creating for every Mayo patient a centrally housed file folder and a unique identifying number that was to be inscribed on every piece of paper that went inside it--doctor's notes, lab results, patient correspondence, birth and death records. And recognizing the scientific value in these dossiers, he also convinced Mayo's leadership to make them available for teaching and research to any physician at the practice.