LEWISBURG, W.Va. (WVDN)— Movies from the 1980s, including The Terminator and WarGames, were initial catalysts that led Ravi Yarid, D.O., to incorporate artificial intelligence into his life at a basic level. Now, he is posing questions about AI to the osteopathic medical community in hopes the profession can serve as a primary source for literacy in this new age of AI integration.
“I was always aware of AI, with AI-related futuristic movies, and about 15 years ago I worked on projects with a much narrower AI scope. I knew spellcheck was AI. Amazon has been using AI. But when AI dropped in a big, general format at the end of 2022, I knew I needed to be involved. This would be the direction of the next chapter of my life,” he said.
Yarid grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., and Maryland. During high school, he moved to Lewisburg, W.Va., and graduated from WVSOM in 2002. He completed a family medicine residency in Coldwater, Mich., and a fellowship in osteopathic manipulative medicine in Bangor, Maine.
He has become a thought leader on artificial intelligence at the national level for osteopathic medicine and education. He has served on and is now the incoming co-chair for the American Osteopathic Information Association’s Digital Health Innovation Steering Committee. He also serves on the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine’s AI Advisory Workgroup, and has delivered numerous AI presentations nationally.
“Artificial intelligence is fit to purpose. If we want it to think for us, it will do that. If we want it to help us think, it will do that. It can help us memorize better or learn more. It can process information and teach it to someone’s preference of learning,” he said. “Our current model of teaching is that everyone has to adapt to a learning model of someone’s teaching. Now that information can be adapted for the learner, it’s kind of flipping the classroom and creating individualized learning plans.”
But adding value to artificial intelligence, rather than just utilizing it for efficiency, is how medical schools can ensure students are open to using it and eventually incorporating it into their careers.
“AI literacy is important. We need to get enough people knowledgeable about AI so we can build with it, as opposed to having it simply sort emails quicker or update personal calendars,” Yarid said. “Believe it or not, when electricity was first introduced, people didn’t jump on that either. That’s why they had world fairs to show people what you could do with it. Then people started thinking, ‘Maybe I should have electricity in my home.’ People don’t quite grasp what we can do with AI, so the more we get them to embrace it, the further we’re going to take this, because it’s not going away.”
Yarid worked for nearly five years as an assistant professor of osteopathic manipulative medicine at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine-Georgia. Now he is an assistant professor and clinical director of the Medical AI Institute at Sam Houston State University Russell and Glenda Gordy College of Osteopathic Medicine in Texas, where he explores how generative AI and digital health competencies can improve patient outcomes and reshape osteopathic medical training.
Yarid imagines more streamlined and intuitive experiences that not only automate but anticipate patients’ health needs, with AI strengthening physician-patient relationships, not replacing them.
“Maybe a patient is beginning to get a sore throat, and AI evaluates the vitals. It can look through a patient’s whole record and give advice or determine if an enhanced telehealth visit is needed,” he said. “Then, if you need to visit a doctor’s office, the physician will have a full review of your records available with the most important aspects already highlighted. The whole system experience is enhanced from beginning to end. That means everything I do as a provider now has more meaning because I’m not going through the laborious processes.”
This could be especially effective in underserved areas, Yarid said, where AI can determine which medical needs are a priority.
“In underserved areas you could have a clinic with a doctor there one day a week, but the AI automatically schedules everyone for that day so it is more dynamic,” he said. “It can determine that a diabetic with home monitoring is doing great so they don’t need to be seen. Or Johnny needs an urgent care visit because he’s got an earache. All of a sudden, the entire system is patients being seen in a more effective manner and being taken care of more.”
Yarid remains committed to spreading knowledge about AI. He dreams of osteopathic medicine being a profession that is a global leader in artificial intelligence.
“It’s not what AI products we should use. It’s, ‘What can we build with it?’ We can build what we need. Especially in the osteopathic profession, because we’re so niche, we need to start building and sharing among ourselves and then we’re going to have a system that is the next generation of health care education and deployment,” Yarid said. “We are able to get ahead, but it’s a matter of embracing it first.”
Yarid believes that physicians and health care providers who have devoted a lifetime of service to others should be among the leading voices on how artificial intelligence is incorporated into society.
“This is where I feel a calling in this profession for us to take the lead. We could help shape AI integration into our world. This is the important time to lay the foundation for what we’re going to do with AI in the future and what the standard for medicine is turning into,” he said. “Again, this starts with AI literacy. The more literate users we can get, the more awareness our profession will have and the more revolutionary ideas we can start bringing forward for ethical AI with human oversight and whole-person care.”
