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True story:
diagnosed my daughter’s broken wrist last week. One of my daughters was in a bad car accident last weekend. Car is totaled but she walked away. Everyone involved did, thankfully. It was a best case outcome for a serious, multi-vehicle freeway collision. There was no need for emergency transport from the scene but her arm was hurting badly by the time we were able to leave (9pm-ish) so I took her home with the intention of visiting Urgent Care early the next morning. Well, ofc she didn’t sleep and by 6am, I was convinced it was broken. The way she was favoring it and the amount of pain she was in indicated more than soft tissue injury. So we got to Urgent Care and they examined her and took some x-rays. Both the doctor who saw her and the radiologist declared her free of breaks and, after answering some of our questions, sent her home with an ace wrap and ibuprofen. On the way out, I asked them to please print out the X-ray images for us so I could take them to her PCP. I hoped they were right, but wasn’t sold. At home, things were rough. Her hand kept going cold and tingly and she couldn’t move her thumb — and I don’t know how to describe it, but it just didn’t *look* right. She had other aches and pains too — including two bruised ribs and some minor whiplash — but the arm pain just kept breaking through. So, as soon I was able, I opened my laptop and started “doing my own research.” I poured over x-rays of normal wrists and broken wrists and, remembering a post from a few weeks ago by
that Grok2 could read medical images, I uploaded the wrist X-ray to Grok and asked if there were any abnormalities. Grok: “There’s a clear fracture line in the distal radius.” I had actually asked the doctor about the line Grok mentioned and he said it was just her growth plate. So I asked Grok if it was seeing a fracture line or a fused growth plate. Grok: “It’s a fracture line.” Finally, I asked if this was a subtle fracture or obvious. I really wanted to give the benefit of the doubt to the doctor. Grok: “quite o Long story short, we went to PCP, got a referral to the ortho, and the next day the wrist specialist took new x-rays (multiple views), examined her, and confirmed Grok’s diagnosis of a distal radial head fracture with dorsal displacement. (And, FTR, I didn’t tell the doctor about my foray into Grok, largely because I didn’t want her to think I was insane. Her diagnosis was completely independent.) They set it and cast it. The ortho said that, due to the displacement, had it gone untreated, she likely would have needed surgery that she can probably avoid now. And it probably would’ve gone untreated — at least for a while. Because the doctor and radiologist said it was fine and I’m just a mom, right? Who the hell am I to question their diagnosis? Now, maybe the doctor and radiologist at Urgent Care were tired and coming off a long night. Maybe they were looking only for an obvious clean break. Or maybe they’re in need of some CME. But *both* of them missed what the ortho and Grok agreed was an “obvious” break. And I do harbor a fair amount of skepticism about LLMs and the limit(s) of their capabilities and potential impact on society— but this was eye-opening for me and I’m very grateful to
and
for getting this one right.
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