NEJM AI Grand Rounds
NEJM Group
NEJM AI Grand Rounds, hosted by Arjun (Raj) Manrai, Ph.D. and Andrew Beam, Ph.D., features informal conversations with a variety of unique experts exploring the deep issues at the intersection of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and medicine. You’ll learn how AI will change clinical practice and healthcare, how it will impact the patient experience, and about the people who are pushing for innovation. Whether you are an AI researcher or a practicing clinician, these conversations will enlighten and surprise you as we journey through this very exciting field. Produced by NEJM Group.
Episodes
Mentioned books
27 snips
Mar 18, 2026 • 1h 7min
AI’s Next Frontier with Dr. Kyunghyun Cho
Dr. Kyunghyun Cho, NYU professor known for neural machine translation and AI in protein engineering and clinical prediction. He traces his path from language models to biology and healthcare. He explains building clinical language models, reframing AI toward operational prediction, and tools like MyChart Explorer. He stresses purpose-built data, fine-tuning, and including patients in AI governance.
61 snips
Feb 18, 2026 • 53min
Epic’s Approach to AI with Seth Hain
Seth Hain, Senior VP of R&D at Epic who leads work on foundation models and the Cosmos healthcare dataset. He discusses building scalable structured medical event models, how Cosmos balances data sharing and trust, and integrating generative AI into clinical workflows. The conversation covers localization of predictions, cautious deployment for interventions, and treating AI as infrastructure for safer care.
35 snips
Jan 21, 2026 • 54min
Bridging AI and Biology to Tackle Medicine’s Hardest Problems with Dr. Marinka Zitnik
Dr. Marinka Zitnik, an associate professor of biomedical informatics at Harvard, is a pioneer in using AI for drug discovery. In their conversation, she highlights the challenge of treating rare diseases and shares how AI-driven drug repurposing can accelerate solutions. Marinka emphasizes the need for collaboration between machine learning and biology to tackle real patient problems. She also defines AI agents as systems capable of learning and taking action, which she believes is vital for advancing scientific discovery.
23 snips
Dec 17, 2025 • 1h 18min
What Values are in AI? A Conversation with Dr. Zak Kohane
Dr. Zak Kohane, Chair of Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School, shares his personal journey with AI in medicine. He discusses building AI tools for clinical use and highlights how AI is rapidly transforming reimbursement practices, especially in revenue-cycle optimization. Zak emphasizes the importance of understanding value judgments in AI models, which can differ from human clinicians. He calls for new oversight to address biases and align AI with patient interests, stressing the need for transparency and ethical deployment.
9 snips
Nov 19, 2025 • 38min
From Hindsight Bias to Machine Bias: Dr. Laura Zwaan on Learning from Mistakes
Dr. Laura Zwaan, an associate professor at Erasmus University, specializes in cognitive psychology and the exploration of diagnostic errors. She examines how both humans and machines inherit biases, stressing the need for transparency in AI. Zwaan reveals the challenges of defining diagnostic errors due to hindsight bias and suggests that systematic errors, rather than individual blame, should be the focus of improvements. She warns that AI can replicate and amplify human biases, advocating for a deeper understanding of machine psychology to ensure safer clinical practices.
42 snips
Oct 15, 2025 • 48min
Medicine, Machines, and Magic: Dr. Jonathan Chen on Medical AI
Dr. Jonathan Chen, a physician-informatician at Stanford, recounts his journey from teenage programmer to medical AI researcher. He discusses the thrilling yet unnerving advancements in machine learning, sharing insights from his cautionary essays to groundbreaking studies where GPT-4 outperformed doctors in diagnostics. Chen emphasizes the importance of empathy over memorization in clinical practice. He also explores the future of medical tasks, the role of AI, and addresses concerns about automation—while remaining optimistic about AI's potential to enhance patient care.
62 snips
Sep 17, 2025 • 1h 3min
From Clinician to Chief Health AI Officer: A Conversation with Dr. Karandeep Singh
Dr. Karandeep Singh, a physician-scientist and Chief Health AI Officer at UC San Diego Health, merges programming with medicine. He shares insights from his journey in biomedical informatics, discussing the crucial gap between theoretical AI capabilities and real-world clinical applications. Singh highlights his experience with sepsis prediction tools, the unexpected challenges in AI governance, and the importance of ethical considerations. His story emphasizes that successful AI must prioritize patient care and remain aware of its limitations.
49 snips
Aug 20, 2025 • 43min
Radiologist Turned CEO: Dr. Jeremy Friese on AI for Prior Authorization
Dr. Jeremy Friese, a practicing radiologist and CEO of Humata Health, shares his journey from a South Dakota farm to transforming healthcare with technology. He delves into the burdens of prior authorization and how AI can bridge gaps between patients and payers. Dr. Friese emphasizes the importance of human oversight in AI applications while discussing future trends in radiology. He also explores philosophical queries about medicine, enhancing the dialogue on career choices and the evolving interplay of AI and human elements in healthcare.
40 snips
Jul 16, 2025 • 1h 7min
Can AI Accelerate Science? Dr. Andy Beam on AI’s Next Frontier
Dr. Andrew Beam, co-host of NEJM AI Grand Rounds and CTO of Lila Sciences, shares his journey from a childhood misdiagnosis to forging the future of AI in healthcare. He discusses how personal experiences shaped his passion for medical AI and the transformative potential it offers. The conversation dives into the intersection of academic research and industry, highlighting the role of data in decision-making and the emergence of AI tools that create and test hypotheses. It's a fascinating glimpse into the next frontier of scientific discovery!
45 snips
Jun 18, 2025 • 38min
Google’s Efforts to Build Patient-Facing AI: A Conversation with Drs. Alan Karthikesalingam and Anil Palepu
Dr. Alan Karthikesalingam and Dr. Anil Palepu from Google delve into the creation of AMIE, an AI designed for patient interactions. They discuss how AMIE was trained with synthetic conversations, proving to be more effective than real transcripts. The duo emphasizes the importance of empathy in AI and the challenges of incorporating machine learning in clinical workflows. They also touch on how AI is evolving in healthcare and its potential to transform patient care by providing quicker and more engaging interactions.
