alphasm

Thank you for the corrections and clarifications. It does still support the point that it can be hard for a layperson to make a call on which opiniom to adopt.

With "everyone wanted to believe" I was referring to the patient and family.

It was (is) difficult to get appointments with these doctors as they are fully booked months in advance and there was no opportunity to consult with them again or get them to discuss the case with one another. Hence the decision had to be made with the information that could be remembered from the consultations. (These days I always record all doctor's consultations for future referral, as memory / recall is of course notoriously bad.)

Yes, this is a difficult decision - if conflicting treatment advice is provided by the two doctors, how do you decide between them? It's not necessarily the case that the second doctor is correct.

Of course, if additional tests are done by the second doctor and new information is uncovered, that helps.

My ex-wife was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and the first doctor said that urgent surgery was needed and both thyroids need to be removed.

She obtained a second opinion from a well-known oncologist, who said that only part of one thyroid needs to be removed, and it wasn't so urgent.

Because everyone wanted to believe the second doctor, that was the option she went for.

This was a very expensive doctor. Shortly after the surgery, he notified her that, in fact, the cancer had spread to both thyroids, and the other one had to urgently be removed as well. This led to double the medical bill, opening up her neck twice, and all the accompanying inconvenience of two surgeries.

It was a strange situation where an incorrect assessment by the doctor directly led to that doctor making more money.

Also, it highlights the tough decision in terms of how you decide between two conflicting opinions if there are no additional diagnostic results to assist.

Wow, this brings back memories!

I got my first PC (a 486 DX2-66) in 1994 and got a Creative Soundblaster graphics card + speakers later that year. Second reality was the first demo I had on that PC. I remember being blown away by the graphics and audio... I showed it off to everyone. Of course it looks quite quaint now, but at the time I had just upgraded from a Commodore 64!

I recently had a similar experience where it became very clear that the lawyers were using AI to draft the agreements. Though it was very accurate and pedantic on some matters, it got other things completely wrong because it was not provided with full context, and full context is very difficult to provide.

The lawyers did not properly review the agreements, causing post-signature discovery of major issues and having to redo and execute all the agreements a second time, leading to inflated lawyer bills.

If the lawyer is going to prompt the same AI that I can prompt myself and is not going to review the agreements thoroughly, then it is clear where this is leading.