STAT AI: An Emergency Medicine Podcast · Ethan Abbott and DJ Apakama

EP19 Resa Lewiss, MD

·1 hr 7 min·4 clips

Lewis says a scripted explanation improved patient understanding more than ad-libbed teaching during ultrasound education scans.

DJ Abhakama and Ethan Abbott open by treating AI as part of emergency medicine already. The episode centers on what is changing and whether those changes actually improve care for clinicians and patients. It keeps its feet in the emergency department. The guest steers the discussion toward shared design, making the case that devices and software should be built with clinicians, patients, and caregivers in mind. The hosts keep coming back to the idea that AI is not a future concept but a current layer inside clinical systems. EKG analysis is one example of technology many clinicians may already use without labeling it as AI. That matters because it changes the question from whether AI exists to how people learn to work with it well. The conversation then turns to a small but useful habit for handling rapid change: build a personal board of directors. Ask a trusted AI-savvy person what they are reading, what they follow, and what they recommend. That keeps the learning curve human. It also cuts through the noise of endless tools, papers, and claims. The episode then gets more concrete about point-of-care ultrasound. The hosts talk about AI tools for image acquisition and interpretation, naming systems such as Caption Health, Butterfly IQ, and other measurement tools as examples of where the technology is showing up. The useful move is to ask what machinery is already in the department. Then ask where AI is active inside that hardware. Then ask what part of the workflow is still clinician judgment. The episode keeps returning to implementation reality. There is interest, but no assumption that the technology can just be dropped into an ED and work cleanly. The discussion leaves room for caution about overload, privacy, and workflow burden without getting defensive. It also treats adaptation as a professional skill rather than a personality trait. The message is simple enough for a busy listener. Learn enough to recognize the tools already around you, find people you trust, and stay skeptical in a way that is useful rather than frozen.

As heard by us

A practical ED-facing look at AI adoption, with less hype and more implementation reality.

Stat AI treats AI in emergency medicine as a working clinical problem, not a slogan. DJ Abhakama and Ethan Abbott keep the focus on the bedside: who builds these tools, who uses them, and what changes when the software is already inside the EHR.

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Why you'd press play

You want a clinician-to-clinician take on how AI is already showing up in emergency medicine.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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