TopMedTalk - The challenges of AI in healthcare, a conversation with Dr Joe Alderman

Yeah, thanks, Andrew, and it's a, it's a great pleasure to be with you today.

So, as Andrew said, my name is Joe.

I'm an NIHR academic clinical lecturer at the University of Birmingham.

So I spend half my time in the NHS.

I'm an anesthetist and intensive care doctor.

I spend the other half of my time working at the University of Birmingham as a post-doctoral researcher in AI and digital health care.

I'll tell you a bit about my story just to give a bit of context.

I graduated in medicine back in twenty fifteen, and I started my career as a junior researcher in the years that followed.

I actually used to be working in cell biology.

I was particularly interested in a field called immunometabolism, [chuckles] so how our immune system interacts with our metabolic system to make us critically ill, what kind of influences those processes.

There's obviously a lot of data that is in that kind of work, and I pivoted my research back in the early twenty twenties into AI and digital health care.

And most of my work at the moment's, um, focused mostly on the governance, regulation, and policy around AI and health care.

So how do we build the processes that ensure that these novel, exciting technologies actually do get into practice, benefit our patients, but also how do we build systems that protect patients and the wider public and from, and society from the harm that these technologies could introduce if we do that badly? So that's kind of who I am and what I do.

Fantastic.

First of all, Joe, before we get into the AI question specifically, can you tell us a bit more about what made you make that switch, perhaps?

Well, I'd love to say it's some sort of clear, kind of rational decision, but actually it was more of a kind of a stars aligning, opportunistic moment, really.

I saw a PhD advertised with the current team I work with, and it was really well aligned to the area of research I wanted to move into.

So I jumped with both feet, and that's how I met my current supervisor and mentor, Professor Alistair Denniston, and colleague, Dr. Xiao Lu, who now works at Microsoft AI.

And then I joined the team, uh, and haven't looked back since.

Brilliant.

What a great opportunity.

So go on, let's dive in.