Fixing Healthcare Podcast · 2026-06-23 · 46 min
In this Unfiltered episode of Fixing Healthcare , Drs. Robert Pearl and Jonathan Fisher join cohost Jeremy Corr for a fascinating conversation about the physician’s mind, the promise and limits of generative AI, and what medicine risks losing when technology advances faster than humans can tolerate. In this episode, Pearl turns to a realization he had during a recent hiking trip in Portugal: his brain felt different while walking through the woods than it does while solving analytical problems. That observation leads to a deeper discussion of “left brain” and “right brain” thinking in medicine. Fisher explains that while the popular labels are oversimplified, the underlying challenge is real. Doctors must integrate structured reasoning with emotional awareness, diagnosis with relationship, and technical expertise with the human experience of illness. The discussion then moves into one of the episode’s most provocative questions: Can generative AI be taught to express empathy and relational intelligence as well as humans? Pearl points to studies showing that AI-generated responses to patient questions can be rated as highly empathetic, comprehensive and accurate.
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