Tessera

Thrilled that my friend and colleague Andy Josephson will be the next dean of the UCSF School of Medicine. Brilliant clinician, gifted teacher, and one of the warmest people I know – he's a perfect fit for the moment. Can't wait to work with him in this role. www.ucsf.edu/news/2026/06...

UCSF Taps Andy Josephson as New Dean for the School of Medicine

S. Andrew Josephson, MD, a master clinician and educator who has led UCSF’s top-ranked Department of Neurology since 2017, has been named the next dean of the UCSF School of Medicine and vice chancell...

ucsf.edu

I'll be in conversation with journalist Katie Hafner, talking AI-Meets-Healthcare – the biggest experiment in medical history. June 30, 2026. 7 pm, Computer History Museum in Mountain View & Livestreamed on YouTube. Free! Info/registration: computerhistory.org/events/a-gia...

A Giant Leap

Preorder the book, A Giant Leap: How AI Is Transforming Healthcare and What That Means for Our Future, for pick-up at the event here. Despite decades of investment, healthcare has been slow to embrace...

computerhistory.org

And congratulations to Carina Marquez for her UCSF Chancellor Award for Public Service — for her amazing work in partnering with the Bay Area community to advance health and healthcare.

So proud of my work partner Maria Novelero for being recognized with the UCSF Chancellor’s Award for Exceptional University Management. Supremely well deserved. Nobody does or cares more.

The AI backlash is growing – from graduating seniors to the Pope. Can healthcare, where optimism is warranted, insulate itself? I doubt it. My new Substack: the backlash and healthcare, and why AI's titans should talk more about this (and less about AGI). robertwachter.substack.com/p/when-the-a...

When the AI Backlash Hits the Hospital

Why Medicine Can’t Insulate Itself from the Public’s Growing Distrust of AI

robertwachter.substack.com

Bob Wachter @bobwachter.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I did 3 new video pods on healthcare AI – great chats with: CNN's Sanjay Gupta on his pod Chasing Life: www.youtube.com/live/c1pGYOG... Chip Kahn on KNN's Biz of Health pod: www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4N6... Stanford Medicine chair Euan Ashley on Future of Medicine pod: www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIS4...

AI is in your healthcare. Here’s what to know | Chasing Life

YouTube video by CNN

youtube.com

I really enjoyed this chat with the amazing Kevin Pho (kevinmd) about AI and healthcare. We talked about knowledge tools (ie, OpenEvidence), med ed, deskilling, scribes, EHRs, and the doctor-patient relationship in the Era of AI. kevinmd.com/2026/04/grad...

Gradually, then suddenly: Dr. Robert Wachter on health care's giant AI leap [PODCAST]

Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, Robert Wachter, discusses his book, A Giant Leap: How AI Is Transforming Healthcare and What That Mean...

kevinmd.com

My new Substack: Epic, the leading EHR vendor, has released >100 AI tools. Choosing them over third-party tools has become the safe choice for many health systems. I explore why, and the bigger questions: can – and should – something be done about it. robertwachter.substack.com/p/damn-it-th...

“Damn it, they’re good”

Why Epic’s Dominance Threatens to Overwhelm Healthcare’s AI Marketplace

robertwachter.substack.com

In today's Washington Post, a terrific piece on the risk of AI-based deskilling in medicine, along with some sensible recommendations. I'm quoted, along with Carla Pugh. Authors: Rebecca Adams/Laura Landry. wpintelligence.washingtonpost.com/topics/2026/...

The AI paradox: How medicine’s embrace of technology could erode doctors’ expertise - WP Intelligence

AI can improve care, but early evidence of skill erosion is raising alarms at hospitals and medical schools

wpintelligence.washingtonpost.com

In Health Affairs Scholar, Bob Kocher, Siobhan Nolan Mangini (both of Venrock) and I argue that – by scaling specialist-level knowledge – AI will create, in essence, the "generalist-specialist." We explore the far-reaching implications for healthcare. academic.oup.com/healthaffair...

How AI Will Redefine Care Delivery: The Rise of the Generalist-Specialist

Abstract. Artificial intelligence is transforming healthcare beyond efficiency gains, presenting an opportunity to fundamentally reorganize the clinical wo

academic.oup.com

What a joy to chat with my old friend Rob Califf about the FDA under his leadership (under both Obama & Biden), the FDA today, AI regulation, misinformation, clinical research & more. We also discussed his memories of being a UCSF medicine resident back in the day. www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JJd...

AI, Regulation, the Information Ecosystem and the Future of Medical Research

YouTube video by UCSF Department of Medicine

youtube.com

Excellent Rock Health analysis of survey on patients' use of AI tools for health info. Big finding: doubling of use in the past year. Insight: healthcare orgs are implementing AI with lots of guardrails ("tortoise"); patients are diving in ("hare"). I'm quoted. rockhealth.com/insights/the...

The tortoise and the hare of care: Health AI insights from Rock Health’s 2025 Consumer Adoption Survey | Rock Health

rockhealth.com

Another highlight of being on CBS Mornings today was meeting The Pitt star Patrick Ball (who was on the show after me), along with Jon LaPook. It shouldn't be too hard to pick out the real doctors in this picture, vs. the one who plays a doctor on TV.

A thrill to be on CBS Mornings today talking AI and Healthcare (and about my book, "A Giant Leap") with host Nate Burleson and Dr. Jon LaPook. The interview (4 minutes) is here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfyN...

How AI is transforming health care and what it means for the future

YouTube video by CBS Mornings

youtube.com

Thrilled with today's UCSF Dept. of Medicine residency match! A brilliant group of young physicians, hailing from 32 different med schools (most frequent: UCSF 8; UCLA 6; Harvard & Stanford 5; Columbia, NYU, Yale 3 each). Eight in our MD-scientist program. Welcome!

I've spent a lot of time thinking about UK healthcare (incl. chairing a 2016 NHS task force on digital transformation). It was great to speak to top UK health policy journalist Alastair McLellan for the Health Services Journal podcast on healthcare AI & "A Giant Leap." www.hsj.co.uk/hsj-health-c...

HSJ Podcast: Bob Wachter on healthcare's AI revolution

HSJ editor Alastair McLellan interviews US physician Bob Wachter about his new book, A Giant Leap, on AI's impact on healthcare.

hsj.co.uk

The healthcare AI landscape gets more dynamic and interesting each day. My conversation with Roy Perlis, Harvard/MGH professor and AI editor JAMA, on where the field is today, implications for doctors and med education, and more. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

An Interview With Dr Robert M. Wachter

JAMA+ AI Editor in Chief Roy Perlis, MD, MSc, spoke with Robert M. Wachter, MD, professor and chair of the Department of Medicine at University of California, San Francisco, for JAMA+ AI Conversations...

jamanetwork.com

Proud of my wife, Katie Hafner, who built & narrates a superb podcast (@lostwomenofsci.bsky.social) about women who made major contributions in STEM but went unrecognized in life. She spoke w/ Robin Young on NPR's Here&Now about LWOS & this season's subject, K. Blodgett. www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2...

New podcast tells story of pioneering female scientist Katharine Burr Blodgett

A new podcast from Lost Women of Science tells the story of Katharine Burr Blodgett, who invented nonreflective glass while working at General Electric, but who is often forgotten.

wbur.org

My latest Substack: Why predictions that radiologists will be replaced by AI (including, famously, by genAI founding father and Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton) have been wildly off base, and what that teaches us about job replacement for doctors. robertwachter.substack.com/p/why-do-you...

“Why Do You Still Have a Job?”

The Surprising Complexity of Replacing Physicians With AI

robertwachter.substack.com

I've known @dgorenstein.bsky.social for 2 decades and have always found him to be extraordinarily thoughtful – not afraid to ask tough questions and to grapple with nuance and, yes, tradeoffs. It was great to chat with him about healthcare AI on his Tradeoffs podcast. tradeoffs.org/2026/03/05/w...

‘We Can’t Afford All These Humans’: A Doctor's Take on AI in Health Care

We talk with physician and writer Bob Wachter about why he’s cautiously optimistic that artificial intelligence will usher in a ‘golden age’ of medicine — and the questions he still has about these po...

tradeoffs.org

I loved my interview with legendary business analyst & founder of "Business Insider", Henry Blodget, on his podcast, "Solutions." Lots of smart questions about AI and healthcare, and how it'll change what it means to be a doctor and a patient. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s...

Solutions with Henry Blodget

Technology Podcast · Updated Weekly · We hear enough about our problems. Let’s solve them. Every Monday, journalist, analyst and entrepreneur Henry Blodget interviews leading thinkers across business,...

podcasts.apple.com

On PBS: Five things to consider before asking a chatbot for health advice (by Matthew Perrone of AP). Among them: ask two different AIs and see if they agree; don't stay home if you have red flag symptoms like chest pain, shortness of breath. I'm quoted. www.pbs.org/newshour/hea...

5 things you should consider before asking an AI chatbot for health advice

Tech companies are pushing new health chatbots, but experts say you still need to talk to your doctor.

pbs.org

I enjoyed working with an all-star team – the great Lisa Rotenstein of UCSF and David Bates of Brigham & Womens – on this paper describing how to measure return on investment (ROI) for clinician-facing AI tools. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Measuring the Return on Investment for Clinician-Facing Artificial Intelligence Technologies

This Viewpoint discusses different ways to measure the return on investment on clinician-facing artificial intelligence tools as the technology advances.

jamanetwork.com