David Shaywitz
@dshaywitz
MD/PhD, healthtech exec building tools that enhance our agency and help us become more capable authors of our own health. DBMI. AEI. Be kind & be well.
Evolution is the way nature explores a vast design space. Two books I just reviewed for @wsj.com offer contrasting perspectives on this: one sees these results as source for inspiration, the other as an opportunity for humans to do much better... www.wsj.com/arts-culture... (gift link)
3/3 Lede for discussion of the second book, "On the Future of Species: Authoring Life by Means of Artificial Biological Intelligence" by geneticist and biotech entrepreneur Adrian Woolfson; full review (gift link) here: wsj.com/arts-culture... @dereklowe.bsky.social @andrewedunn.bsky.social
2/3 Lede for discussion of the first of these books, "Force of Nature" by @vanderbilt.edu prof of law and biology Owen Jones; full review (gift link) here: wsj.com/arts-culture... @nachristakis.bsky.social
Love this from @emollick.bsky.social, elegantly illustrating how a leading genAI model (@anthropic.com's Fable), for all its remarkable capability, is still missing something vital and transcendent that extraordinary writers like John McPhee are able to conjure... @melaniemitchell.bsky.social
Wow - very cool! What I remember being told was that, at the time he won the Nobel, he had published relatively few papers (but they were obviously v high quality!!) - in contrast to some of the folks in medicine and science with lengthy CVs larded with comparatively trivial blather.
For all the negativity, so much in medicine improving, as Aaron Neinstein account of his endo clinic highlights: -DM2 pts->TF'd by GLP-1s. -DM1 pts->TF'd by clsd lp systms. Not perfection, but dramatically improved care. Great to see, celebrate, remember, & cultivate. @dereklowe.bsky.social
See also my 2022 @wsj.com review of "Escape from Model Land" (gift link) -> www.wsj.com/articles/esc...
Also - term used in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat... cc @jackviertel.bsky.social
I saw these barred owls on my jog early this morning on the Minuteman Trail! Cc @phylogenomics.bsky.social @carolynbertozzi.bskyverified.social
Really trying to see if there’s value to be had from Whoop but frustrated by consistently poor measurements. On morning jog, it records an erroneously elevated heart rate (1st pix), likely bc it’s recording gait not pulse. Apple watch (second pic) seems much more accurate.
4/Zak Kohane offers constructive suggestion - suggesting where AI could most effectively be focused - on "mustn't miss" errors of omission, with plenty of space left for judgement, i.e. "preserving the discretionary space in which good medicine occurs."
3/The risks of AI-generated guidelines is that b/c results will look so polished, there's real risk that, as Zak Kohane writes, we'll mistake "linguistic competence for clinical legitimacy"...
2/This graf beautifully articulates the "uneasy" - perfect word choice - place in medicine where guidelines sit...
This seems promising - @openevidence.bsky.social deployed at MGB-West - er, um, I mean @cedarssinaihsu.bsky.social, in HIPAA-compliant fashion evidently that integrates OE evidence + pt medical records. Seems highly enabling, congrats to Peter & all my other former colleagues leading w such vision.
In context of recent discussion of MD political leanings, I asked ChatGPT to estimate MD salaries for categories mentioned, to examine whether there's any apparent relationship. Result below; *usual caveats re: AI apply!* @davidshor.bsky.social @nachristakis.bsky.social @dbaltman.bsky.social
Lots of interest in these results today; I discussed and contextualized political polarization in medicine in @thebulwark.com, a few years ago: thebulwark.com/p/political-... @sarahlongwell25.bsky.social @jvl.bsky.social @davidshor.bsky.social @nachristakis.bsky.social @rbaltman.bsky.social
No one covers the eccentricities of the well-being and lifestyle craze more effectively or more amusingly than @bethteitell.bsky.social www.bostonglobe.com/2026/05/18/l... Nut graf; kicker…
7/7 Bottom line: the trajectory of AI-enabled, entrepreneur-led consumer health seems more promising than the direction traditional healthcare is headed. @luketimmerman.bsky.social
6/7 Of course guilds of healthcare will circle the wagons - but increasingly, the tried-and-true approach of appealing to a gauzy idealized vision of patient care isn't landing b/c it's so far removed from everyone's lived experience with the healthcare system.
5/7 This profound and worsening and seemingly inescapable dysfunction with existing system creates opportunity for those such as consumer health enterprises trying to work outside of it. Imperfect as many of these are, they're get better, faster.
4/7 One result is that incumbent payors and providers cannot disengage from their fatal mutual embrace...
3/7 Yet, because of existing incentives, the remarkable promise of emerging technology is being used by incumbents in what one speaker described as "just the worst way." As another speaker, CMS's Jacob Shiff nicely expressed it:
2/7 Lots of confidence about AI expressed by even some savvy and historically skeptical leaders incl @ucsfmedicine.bsky.social's @bobwachter.bsky.social
4/5 And of particular importance, I view exercise/fitness as on-ramp to broader health and wellness: timmermanreport.com/2021/05/from... @michaelalbertmd.bsky.social @alicecallahan.bsky.social @euanashley.bsky.social
Terrific Jacob Shiff quote from this wk's @dukemargolis.bsky.social conf in DC, abt how you get what you incent; he=more optimistic than I am about adjusting incentives of current HC system; my POV on conf, & why I'm more hopeful about AI-enabled consumer health. timmermanreport.com/2026/05/can-...
Hey @phylogenomics.bsky.social - your grosbeaks are good but I think the Bali flying monkeys (featured in Journal story) may be better!