iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Danielle Bitterman MD @daniellebitterman.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

Our research has found that even when chatbots are given specific patient context, they often drift back toward generic, "average patient" responses. They see the data, but they don't always weigh it like a physician would.

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Danielle Bitterman MD @daniellebitterman.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

As I shared in the NYT, models often see the data but fail to weigh it like a physician, drifting toward generic "average patient" responses. Context window ≠ Clinical reasoning. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/03/w...

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Danielle Bitterman MD @daniellebitterman.bsky.social · 30/11/2025

Check out our editorial on Zazzetti et al (2025)'s paper on synthetic data generation for breast cancer, in JCO CCI! Synthetic data could help with many gaps in clinical AI research, but challenges remain especially (IMO) issues with out-of-domain generalization @shan23chen.bsky.social

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Danielle Bitterman MD @daniellebitterman.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

Super proud of @shan23chen.bsky.social for his podium presentation on his research into LLM sycophancy in the face of illogical medical queries at #AMIA25! Full paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Also cited yesterday in the NYT! www.nytimes.com/2025/11/16/w...

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Danielle Bitterman MD @daniellebitterman.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

LLMs tend to prioritize helpfulness > reason. We show that safety-aware, compute-efficient fine-tuning helps models reason more critically in healthcare domain, and generalizes to improved safety alignment across other domains. www.nature.com/articles/s41... @shan23chen.bsky.social

nature.com

When helpfulness backfires: LLMs and the risk of false medical information due to sycophantic behavior - npj Digital Medicine

npj Digital Medicine - When helpfulness backfires: LLMs and the risk of false medical information due to sycophantic behavior

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Scott McGrath @smcgrath.phd · 17/10/2025

An overemphasis on helpfulness makes LLMs vulnerable. Research shows models will comply with illogical medical requests, generating false information. This sycophantic tendency can be corrected with specific prompting and fine-tuning. #MedSky #MedAI #MLSky

nature.com

When helpfulness backfires: LLMs and the risk of false medical information due to sycophantic behavior - npj Digital Medicine

npj Digital Medicine - When helpfulness backfires: LLMs and the risk of false medical information due to sycophantic behavior

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Mass General Brigham Innovation @mgbinnovation.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

Mass General physician-scientist @daniellebitterman.bsky.social discusses how AI assists the clinical data pipeline leading to better treatments for patients. Listen to unNatural Selection & register for #WMIF2025 at the link in bio to hear more : www.unnaturalselection.net/podcast/s1e19 #MedTech

unnaturalselection.net

Clinical Reporting: Mass General — unNatural Selection

Signals Over Noise: Cleaning Up Cancer Trial Data

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Jirui Qi @jiruiqi.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

Our paper on multilingual reasoning is accepted to Findings of #EMNLP2025! 🎉 (OA: 3/3/3.5/4) We show SOTA LMs struggle with reasoning in non-English languages; prompt-hack & post-training improve alignment but trade off accuracy. 📄 arxiv.org/abs/2505.22888 See you in Suzhou! #EMNLP

arxiv.org

When Models Reason in Your Language: Controlling Thinking Trace Language Comes at the Cost of Accuracy

Recent Large Reasoning Models (LRMs) with thinking traces have shown strong performance on English reasoning tasks. However, their ability to think in other languages is less studied. This capability ...

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Danielle Bitterman MD @daniellebitterman.bsky.social · 07/07/2025

Are you driven to use AI to transform patient outcomes in oncology? My lab in the AI in Medicine Program (Mass General Brigham, Harvard Medical School) is seeking Postdoctoral Fellows to pioneer applications of AI—especially LLMs—in cancer care. More here: www.linkedin.com/posts/daniel...

linkedin.com

🚀 Join Us at the Forefront of AI & Cancer Care | Danielle Bitterman

🚀 Join Us at the Forefront of AI & Cancer Care Are you driven to use cutting-edge AI to transform patient outcomes in oncology? My lab within the AI in Medicine Program (Mass General Brigham, Har...

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Danielle Bitterman MD @daniellebitterman.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

Does your LRM reason in your language? Check out new preprint led by ✨ @jiruiqi.bsky.social & @shan23chen.bsky.social. Implications for safety/human oversight & accuracy!

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Danielle Bitterman MD @daniellebitterman.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

Agents are all the rage and we need to track their abilities in the medical domain. Enter MedBrowseComp, the 1st benchmark to assess agents' abilities to reason, navigate the web, and search for verifiable med info! Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2505.14963 Site: moreirap12.github.io/mbc-browse-a...

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STAT @statnews.com · 14/05/2025

#STATBreakthrough

"I think we have massive opportunity in cancer care to get patients to the right care, the most advanced care earlier, by taking those workforce shortages and using AI to get to solutions."

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STAT @statnews.com · 14/05/2025

#STATBreakthrough

"The other thing I'm scared of, it's a patient's voice is going to be come lost in the conversation of on what type of AI is developed and how we implement it," Danielle

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Danielle Bitterman MD @daniellebitterman.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

I’m thrilled to be in San Francisco for @statnews.com's Breakthrough West Summit! I’ll be bringing my firsthand perspective as a physician-scientist to speak about how AI is transforming cancer care, alongside leaders in the field. Let's connect if you're here! #STATBreakthroughSummitWest

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STAT @statnews.com · 13/05/2025

AI in Cancer Care Artificial intelligence has the potential to upend oncology, changing everything from diagnosis to treatment options. Get a wide-ranging view of how the use of technology could play out over the next few years. Moderated by @angusrohan.bsky.social #STATBreakthrough

A social card that reads Featured Session: AI in Cancer Care. Then underneath are four headshots and titles. They read: Danielle Bitterman, M.D., Clifford A. Hudis, M.D., Karen Knudsen, Ph.D., and STAT's Angus Chen.

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Tim Miller @tim-miller.bsky.social · 23/04/2025

Exciting news: we are organizing a shared task – 2nd edition of the Chemotherapy Treatment Timelines Extraction from the Clinical Narrative (text mining task) -- collocated with the Clinical NLP Workshop. Do LLMs solve the task? Check out bit.ly/ChemoTimelin...

bit.ly

ChemoTimelines 2025

Treatment regimens are key details in understanding the effects of genetic, epigenetic, and other factors on tumor behavior and responsiveness. As precision oncology progresses, insights into the fine...

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Eric Topol @erictopol.bsky.social · 23/03/2025

A pie graph worth keeping in mind as the NIH budget plummets jamanetwork.com/journals/jam... for 356 new FDA drugs approved

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Danielle Bitterman MD @daniellebitterman.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

Conference and professional societies: PLEASE make hybrid options available for attendees and presenters at your conferences so that scientists from HHS-funded agencies can attend. These are unmissable opportunities to promote all the great intramural science and scientists from our government.

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Ken Mandl @kenmandl.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

My Perspective in @NEJM_AI. AI could distort clinical decision-making in ways that prioritize profit over patient care. Oversight & regulation must go beyond performance metrics alone to address hidden commercial forces that could shape decision support. ai.nejm.org/doi/full/10....

ai.nejm.org

Unseen Commercial Forces Could Undermine Artificial Intelligence Decision Support

Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to transform health care, yet without robust safeguards, unseen commercial interests could distort care by prioritizing profit over patient well-being. The ph...

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Emily Goldberg @dremilygoldberg.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

My opinion as an actual NIH-funded researcher (unlike Vinay) at ucsf: his lies about how NIH dollars are used reflect a complete lack of understanding of how research is performed, a lack of respect for research, and are harmful to the entire biomedical research enterprise #grifter

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Jeremy Warner, MD, MS, FAMIA, FASCO @hemoncwarner.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

Budgeting for the next year of my grants and they will all need to be rescoped, even before the 15% IDC rate. NCI funding at 83% for new awards and another 10% reduction for renewals (current state). Essentially, we are getting 50% of what we asked for...how is this sustainable? @carlbergstrom.com

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Danielle Bitterman MD @daniellebitterman.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

As a cancer doctor I see every day how NIH-funded clinical trials save lives and has made the U.S. a leader in medical innovation. Here's one example: In the 1970s, childhood cancer survival was only 58%. Today it is 85%, largely thanks to NIH/NCI funding of Children's Oncology Group trials.

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jenna ruddock @ruddock.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

Congressional delegation outside USAID now: “We are here to shed a light on a crime unfolding before our eyes.”

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Charlotte Clymer @charlotteclymer.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

Senator Andy Kim just went to the USAID building, talked to the security guard there to confirm employees are being barred entry, and then did a press gaggle right there in front to call it out. This is doing something. This is making an effort on messaging. Other Democratic lawmakers: take notes.

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Alt CDC (they/them) @altcdc.altgov.info · 02/02/2025

Gay? Lesbian? Trans? Intersex? NYC Health has health information for everybody. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

nyc.gov

LGBTQ+ Health - NYC Health

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Danielle Bitterman MD @daniellebitterman.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

LLM attachment styles: Secure - Claude, Anxious - DeepSeekR1/o1, Avoidant - Gemini Am I wrong?

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Danielle Bitterman MD @daniellebitterman.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

My lab is funded by the NIH to improve monitoring and management of cancer treatment side effects, so that patients can stay on treatments that are working against their cancer, and have a better quality of life during and after treatment

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Danielle Bitterman MD @daniellebitterman.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

In addition to the research funded by the NIH, I am grateful and indebted to the dedicated NIH scientists & staff. Their work advances breakthroughs, scientific careers, and improves & saves lives across the U.S

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Danielle Bitterman MD @daniellebitterman.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

Also applies broadly to treating trainees/junior faculty kindly and collaboratively.

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Danielle Bitterman MD @daniellebitterman.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

Love this paper, thanks for this contribution @roxanadaneshjou.bsky.social and @rajpurkar.bsky.social. This is the way to start to understand how LLMs can and should perform for diagnostics - clinical vignettes don't reflect real world medical practice.

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Danielle Bitterman MD @daniellebitterman.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

There is a word doc already provided in the supplementary materials.

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Danielle Bitterman MD @daniellebitterman.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

There is an option to download a blank pdf to fill out once you select the study design(s) and task(s). Hope that is helpful!

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TRIPOD Statement @tripodstatement.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

We have a NEW PAPER in @naturemedicine.bsky.social on reporting recommendations for addressing the unique challenges of #largelanguagemodels (LLMs) in biomedical applications www.nature.com/articles/s41... #MLSky #StatsSky #medSky #AISky #artificialintelligence #generativeAI #transparency

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Danielle Bitterman MD @daniellebitterman.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

TRIPOD-LLM is out! Check out our consensus guidelines for reporting #LLM research in biomedicine. TRIPOD-LLM is intended to be a living guideline to keep up with the rapid advances in LLMs. Kudos to lead author Dr. Jack Gallifant

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Julia Maués @itsnotpink.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

Physician scientists have my heart full of gratitude. I cannot overstate how important this career is for humanity’s well-being!

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Jeremy Warner, MD, MS, FAMIA, FASCO @hemoncwarner.bsky.social · 20/12/2024

Our latest update of the HemOnc knowledgebase is ready and available at Harvard Dataverse: dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtm.... Have a look! @peteryang.hemonc.org @ecquis.bsky.social

dataverse.harvard.edu

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Danielle Bitterman MD @daniellebitterman.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

I have not listened to the full lecture, but the content on the NeurIPS keynote slide is xenophobic and unacceptable. There is growing prejudice against Chinese students and academics - let's let this be a catalyst to begin addressing it more deeply. Listen to the eloquent audience member below.

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Stanford NLP Group @stanfordnlp.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

The extraordinary recent takeover of ML/AI by #NLP is well-known but insufficiently reflected on. Look at the @neuripsconf.bsky.social tutorials in 2024! neurips.cc/virtual/2024... 14 tutorials; 6 have "LLM" in the title; 4 more cover foundation models, with large NLP coverage. That's > 70% 😲

neurips.cc

NeurIPS 2024 TutorialsNeurIPS 2024

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Danielle Bitterman MD @daniellebitterman.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

I won't be @ NeurIPS, but Jack Gallifant is representing the lab and some of his other great papers. Stop by to chat w him if you're interested in our work! #NeurIPS2024 CrossCare studies how biased pretraining data -> biased LLMs: neurips.cc/virtual/2024... 12/10 4:30-7:30p W Ballroom A-D #5203

neurips.cc

NeurIPS Poster Cross-Care: Assessing the Healthcare Implications of Pre-training Data on Language Model BiasNeurIPS 2024

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Danielle Bitterman MD @daniellebitterman.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

I am always worrying about Benzene (my cat)! www.nytimes.com/2024/12/05/w... But please don't stop wearing sunscreen! Sun exposure is a known cancer risk, benzene risks unknown. This article has good tips if you want to minimize benzene exposure. Obligatory Benzene (cat) pic ⬇️

nytimes.com

Is It Time to Worry About Benzene in Personal Care Products?

The carcinogen has been found in sunscreen, deodorants, acne creams and other personal care products. Here’s what to know.

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