Reflection Essay by Ethan H.
Participating in the Stanford AIMI Bootcamp this summer was a very insightful experience that further enhanced my interest in AI in healthcare.
The program was filled with engaging lectures, thoughtful discussions, and professionals from the field of healthcare. Amongst many different sessions, one that stood out to me was Dr. Justin Norden’s presentation. Drawing from his interdisciplinary experience across medicine, business, and technology, he taught us how to properly build impactful healthcare setups. He also shared his perspectives and data on the current performance of AI in healthcare and addressed the risks of generative AI models today. Beyond the technical discussions he presented, Dr. Norden also shared important life lessons he learned throughout his journey as both an entrepreneur and a doctor. His talk was both educational and inspirational, providing me with advice on what skill sets I should develop to prepare for the future and also reflecting on whether this career path is the right fit for me.
Another expert who inspired me was Dr. Xuan Zhao, who is also an entrepreneur like Dr. Justin Norden. She shared her experiences navigating the challenges of mental health with technology, providing valuable insights into the advancements of AI and what it is capable of. Through her app, Flourish, she demonstrated how AI can be integrated into mental health support, while also sharing her perspective on its current limitations and potential. One of the notable moments during this lecture was when she stated that AI could never replace human therapists. It reminded me that while technology can support healthcare, the emotional understanding and human connection to a real person is irreplaceable. Her dedication to leveraging AI to help others inspired me to work towards developing AI-powered prosthetics to improve the lives of people with disabilities.
In addition to the expert talks, I found Professor Peyman’s tutorial on how to read an academic research paper especially helpful. He taught us how to break down each section of a paper, the abstract, introduction, methods, results, and conclusion, explaining what order we should read them and what key information to grasp. This breakdown enabled me to better identify the core purpose of a scientific study. Even when the language seemed overwhelming and some unknown vocabularies, navigating the paper felt a lot easier after knowing where to spot key information and how to interpret it. Professor Peyman’s tutorial has helped me overcome my intimidation of these complex academic materials, and encouraged me to explore more scientific topics on my own.
Throughout the AIMI bootcamp, one challenge in AI and healthcare that stood out to me was the issue of bias in medical datasets. We learned that the data we use to train AI models do not accurately represent all populations around the globe, especially minorities due to 80% of the data coming from white/caucasian race. This is a big issue because of the obstacles that appear when using the AI models on patients from populations underrepresented in the training data. The algorithms may perform well for some groups but poorly for others, widening the gaps between groups and their accessibility to proper healthcare. I’m very curious about the steps researchers will take to overcome these biases, especially given how essential high-quality and diverse datasets are for building accurate and fair AI models. I’d like to learn more about approaches using synthetic data to fill these gaps.
In the future, I plan to keep exploring AI in healthcare through both personal projects and schoolwork. One of the things that first got me interested in this field was working with my friends on a surgical robot prototype. Even though our first design was simple using only the basics, it helped me understand how robotics and AI can support doctors by making surgeries more accurate and less invasive. I am excited to keep improving the robot and to learn how AI can help with surgical decisions or respond to real-time situations. Also, after learning about how to read academic research papers from Professor Peyman, I feel more confident diving into new studies and learning about the latest advances in the field. Being able to understand research will help me stay up to date, think of new ideas, and maybe even do my own research on topics like AI-powered prosthetics and robotics in healthcare. I hope to use everything I learned from the AIMI bootcamp in future classes, personal projects, and opportunities that focus on using technology to make healthcare better and more available to everyone.
- Ethan H, AIMI '25 Summer Health AI Bootcamp Participant