Reflection Essay by Amari S.
Throughout my time at the Stanford AIMI bootcamp, I was surrounded by mentors who have guided me through the learning process of AI and its impacts in the healthcare field.
I dove into the topic of AI in health, how AI works, and what the future of AI is.
At the very first meeting, I was inspired by Dr. Kevin Schulman, who enlightened us on the history of healthcare and the role that Sidney Garfield played in creating the basis for our modern healthcare insurance structure, which is a subscription based service. Dr. Schulman’s lecture made me reflect on how not everyone in the United States has access to healthcare and lifesaving medicine. For example, I have spoken to teens who cannot afford EpiPens because they cost upwards of $600 for a two-pack. There are health equity issues that we need to address as a society to ensure that everyone has access to healthcare and medicine to be healthy.
Dr. Curt Langlotz displayed a graph during the “Meet the Experts” session, which depicted how AI performs better than humans, including demonstrating more empathy in responses. This intrigues me because it seems somewhat counterintuitive that a machine would offer more empathetic responses than a human being. Dr. Langlotz’s presentation highlighted how we should not have any preconceived notions of AI’s capabilities. Dr. Langlotz also described AI’s usefulness in radiology, including how it can catch details that radiologists sometimes miss. This interests me because it reveals how AI can serve as powerful tools in medical diagnoses. There are likely other medical specialties that can benefit from the use of AI.
The guest speaker sessions have further sparked my passion for AI and health in the future. I want to learn more about this intriguing new tool that will shape the future of our lives. As a teen who manages multiple food allergies, I have always aspired to become an allergist. With the knowledge I have gained from this AI bootcamp, I now recognize the powerful role that AI can have on healthcare and medicine. My goal is still to become an allergist; however, I am now also determined to become proficient in AI.
A challenge that interested me from the bootcamp is the fact that AI can be biased towards certain groups of people because most of the training data comes from White patients, while excluding African Americans and other racial minority groups. This makes the AI predictions more accurate for White patients, while not performing as well with patients of African American descent, for example. This problem stems from the training data so it is possible to fix it through diversifying the data that is included in the AI model. If we incorporate more data from the African American population and other racial minority groups, then we can solve bias in a certain type of AI. I would like to learn more about diversifying data. Last year, I served as a keynote speaker at a national food allergy conference focused on health equity. One of the pharmaceutical company executives expressed how they are seeking diverse patient populations to participate in clinical trials of new drugs to help people with food allergies. I would like to research why racial minority groups are underrepresented in clinical trials and how to address that because data from all groups is important in the AI context as well as health equity context.
By participating in this bootcamp, I have discovered a deeper interest in AI and medicine and will continue to pursue courses and educational experiences in these areas. Through the presentations by guest speakers across the globe who are experts in their fields, I now have diversity in my knowledge of the AI and healthcare field as well as a fuller understanding of the future of AI in our world and in everyday life. I plan to enroll in courses relating to computer science, AI, the medical field, and the intersection of AI and health in and out of school to further my knowledge on how AI affects healthcare. For example, I am interested in taking Equity in Medicine through the Stanford Pre-Collegiate Summer Institute because this AI bootcamp has brought to light that in medicine, our data does not reflect the true population of users, especially in minority populations. As a Black teen, I am highly interested in addressing this issue. Additionally, I am eager to participate in AIMI Grand Rounds and AIMI NextGen Tech Talks to engage with experts in the field. Using AI in healthcare is a topic that will continue to remain relevant in the future. Being able to use AI is critical and I will aim to stay abreast of developments in AI so that I will be an informed and knowledgeable user. I aspire to be an allergist in the future, and I believe that knowledge of AI in healthcare will help position me to become an effective physician.
I would like to extend a heartfelt thanks to the AIMI staff for offering this informative, engaging, and inspirational bootcamp course. I am so grateful I had a chance to participate in this program, and I am determined to increase my knowledge through other courses and educational experiences in the future. As a freshman in high school, I appreciate having a strong foundational base of knowledge about AI and healthcare to build on as I progress in my educational journey.
- Amari S, AIMI '25 Summer Health AI Bootcamp Participant