Rajnath Singh warns against ChatGPT and internet self-diagnosis

Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday highlighted the challenges doctors face from patients who self-diagnose using the internet and ChatGPT. Speaking at the inauguration of a Mahajan Imaging and Labs facility in Noida, he said people now often search symptoms online before visiting a doctor, sometimes arriving with a diagnosis already in mind instead of describing their actual symptoms.

Singh noted that a person with mild chest pain could search online and conclude they had a serious heart condition, when the pain might be due to anxiety or muscle issues. He also gave a light-hearted example of a villager describing chest discomfort as "dhuk dhuk", a term no medical textbook covers. Another anecdote involved a patient who claimed to have claustrophobia but readily agreed to an MRI.

The minister stressed that technology and medical expertise must work together, but machines cannot understand a patient's mind. He called on healthcare professionals to protect patient privacy, avoid bias in AI use, and ensure patients never feel treated as just a number.