Berci Meskó, MD, PhD

I cannot express my happiness and excitement about a book I’ve been working on for so long! Here is Your Map to the Future: Learn How to Navigate and Shape What Lies Ahead! In this book, I make science-based futures methods, that only experts including me at The Medical Futurist have been using for decades, accessible to everyone! This heavily illustrated book describes how starting from the traps of short-term thinking and presentism, we can finally expand our time perspective and learn to observe and examine the future as we have been doing with the past. Doing this is crucial in addressing today’s most pressing issues, from climate change to the rise of AI. I cannot wait to hear what you think about it and if you could also leave an Amazon review, that would be fantastic! Thank you! I’m looking forward to beginning this journey with you! Here is the Amazon link: amzn.to/3ZyNHjd

Digital health and AI are going to hurt the most in these countries! With global doctor shortages, it's going to be a luxury to meet a physician whenever you want. Because healthcare is facing a critical but basic math problem: 5 million healthcare workers are missing worldwide, according to the WHO. This number is going to be 10 million by 2030. We cannot train as many as we need. At the same time, the number of patients is rising because we can take better care of them and diagnose them earlier.  The demand for care is outpacing our ability to supply it. This gap creates longer wait times, overwhelmed hospitals, and burnt-out staff.  Recent OECD data show the top countries with the biggest number of patient visits per doctor, and the biggest number of doctor consultations per patient per year. This gap will hurt the most in these countries. The solution? Adopting advanced technologies at scale, not because we think it's better than talking to physicians, but because we have no other choice.

For generations, the medical black bag has been a symbol of a physician’s ability to provide care anywhere. But what will it contain in the future? Portable ultrasound devices, digital stethoscopes, handheld ECGs, AI-powered diagnostics, and other emerging technologies could turn the traditional black bag into a mobile diagnostic toolkit. In this video, I explore the future of the medical black bag and how digital health technologies could redefine the tools physicians use to care for patients. Check it out on YouTube! youtu.be/qZ8833XNlX0

Using AI in medicine always prompts the question in almost everyone: what happens when AI goes wrong? Who is responsible legally and ethically? The American Medical Association rightfully weighed in: "AMA said the clinical AI liability framework it’s advancing "recognizes that multiple parties may bear liability for the use of AI when something goes wrong," and then aligns that accountability based on a party’s ability to prevent harm. Responsibility is spread out in areas where control is shared, but it does not become interchangeable, and no party’s obligations disappear because another party also bears some. As for the physicians AMA represents, the liability framework calls for doctors to "be responsible for the clinical judgment they can meaningfully exercise, based on the system’s intended use, known limitations and the information available at the point of care." Does it help anyone? :) Source: fiercehealthcare.com/ai-and-…

I recently asked my LinkedIn community when they think the FDA might allow AI to prescribe medications without human intervention. Of the 348 respondents, 36% said never, while 34% expected it within 2–5 years. I find this divide fascinating because the first experiments are already happening. I think the most interesting question is what would have to happen before we could safely allow AI to prescribe medications without human supervision. I see four major requirements. Read on: medicalfuturist.com/what-wou…

Charities can either share their worries publicly about the rise of generative AI used by patients OR build their own tools to counter that trend. This is exactly what gynaecological cancer charity The Eve Appeal just did! They launched an AI-powered information tool after identifying potentially dangerous errors in cancer advice provided by ChatGPT. "Ask Eve Assist provides cancer information from sources certified by the PIF TICK quality mark. The service covers symptoms, screening, HPV and prevention, referring complex inquiries to specialist nurses. The Eve Appeal said that users requiring medical assessment are directed to healthcare services, while those seeking specialist advice can request to speak to an Ask Eve nurse." I hope other charities will follow their example! Source: digitalhealth.net/2026/10/ch…

The era of delivering virtual keynotes by simply sitting in front of an unlit webcam is over. At least, I believe it should be. Tomorrow, I'll be delivering a virtual keynote to healthcare professionals and business leaders in Romania. As always, I've spent considerable time customizing the presentation: selecting the most relevant studies, identifying the trends that matter to this particular audience, and adapting my key messages as a professional futurist. But there's another side to preparing for a virtual keynote, and this photo shows it quite well.  The competition for people's attention has never been greater. And when we're speaking virtually, we don't have many of the advantages of being physically present on stage: the energy of the room or direct eye contact. That means we, as keynote speakers, have to raise our standards: Professional lighting, high-quality audio, multiple cameras, engaging visuals, and a carefully designed virtual experience are no longer just nice extras. You can find more details about my approach here: medicalfuturist.com/virtual-… Have you seen a trick or method recently during a virtual talk that amazed you?

Healthcare has always lacked the systematic use of futures methods to explore its future. To counter that, our theme issue in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, The Emergence of Medical Futures Studies, is now complete! Together with my fellow guest editor, Tamás Kristóf, we brought together 14 scientific papers published between 2024 and 2026, exploring how established futures methods can help us better understand and prepare for the future of medicine. The studies cover a remarkable range of topics: from horizon scanning for emerging medical technologies and scenario planning for AI in oncology to the future of medical education, clinical AI governance, and backcasting the adoption of AI diagnostics. Why does this matter? Because predicting that AI will transform medicine is easy. Building credible scenarios, identifying early signals of change, and translating those insights into better decisions requires a scientific approach. The goal of medical futures studies is to help healthcare professionals prepare for multiple plausible futures! This collection represents an important milestone in our efforts to establish medical futures studies as a recognized scientific field. I'm grateful to all the researchers, reviewers, and the JMIR team who contributed to making this possible. The future of medicine deserves more than predictions. It deserves its own scientific discipline. Explore the complete theme issue: jmir.org/themes/1638/2026-th…

Have you seen the modern healthcare hierarchy in the age of generative AI? :)

Online scheduling company Zocdoc just started letting AI agents search for providers and book appointments on behalf of patients! What a bold step from Zocdoc. This is certainly one way of encouraging the progress of AI agents into the logistics of healthcare. Here is how it works: "Agents must register with Zocdoc to gain access and obtain patient consent before booking or canceling an appointment on its online platform, the company said Wednesday. Google Gemini, Amazon Health AI, and text- and call-based AI agent Instinct are already connected, and other agents can apply for access with or without a human’s help." It seems Zocdoc is taking a bet on agentic AI, and I do think they are on the right track to gain a competitive advantage in the field. Source: healthcaredive.com/news/zocd…

BREAKING NEWS! Google just announced to deepen its partnership with Singapore to deploy frontier AI across the nation’s healthcare system! Given a tech company with a lot of tools and research in healthcare AI, and a developed nation that realized that it simply cannot keep on providing care at a given level of quality without the massive use of AI. Here is Google's announcement: "We’re establishing a Google Research hub in Singapore composed of local research scientists and software engineers. The group will focus on driving advancements in foundational AI models to accelerate scientific breakthroughs. It will also partner with academic institutions, such as the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University, to help nurture future scientific leaders and provide targeted research support. Google Research will also scale its existing health research initiatives in Singapore. This includes bringing open models like MedGemma to frontline care settings to enable the development of secure, customized solutions while maintaining full data sovereignty." Kudos to the leaders of Singapore for this bold step! Source: blog.google/innovation-and-a…

A new survey of over 5,000 US adults shows how Americans use AI for health. Let's get used to the rising number of patients using AI for health purposes and navigation in the age of doctor shortages and rising longevity demands. Here are some interesting results: 1) The share of people bringing health questions to AI climbed from 14% to 25% over the past year. Mental health support moved along a parallel track, rising from 8% to 14%.  2) AI penetration in navigating the healthcare system advanced from 16% to 23% among people who deal with it.  3) About 69% of Americans handle healthcare in some form, which means more than three-quarters of that group work through it without AI. 4) On a medical diagnosis, 63% prefer a person and 19% favor AI, and the rest have no preference.  "Consumers turn to AI to research, interpret, track, and prepare, then leave the verdict in human hands. Mental health also turns up on the other side of the ledger, with 29% of respondents who say AI has hurt their lives citing damage to their mental well-being. Adoption has expanded in the parts of health that people can double-check, while the final call remains a human one. AI's health role is taking shape as the preparation before a clinician weighs in." The survey: qz.com/how-americans-use-ai-…

In 2021, MIT Technology Review reported that a woman had been sexually harassed on Meta's virtual reality social platform, Horizon Worlds. She's not the first and won't be the last. I shared the story back then because I believed it highlighted a fundamental problem with emerging technologies: we often innovate faster than we learn how to protect people using them. So, as always, I checked what has changed in five years. 1) Meta introduced virtual personal boundaries to prevent avatars from getting too close to each other. But a 2025 study analyzing 12 social VR platforms found that harassment was still common and existing safety tools were often insufficient. 2) And a 2026 systematic review of 85 studies confirmed that harassment in VR remains a serious issue, especially for vulnerable populations. Why does this matter for digital health? Unlike reading an offensive comment on a screen, an unwanted interaction in an immersive virtual environment can feel like an intrusion into your own personal space. The technologies we build should also protect the people using them. Source: technologyreview.com/2021/12…

My new book, Your Map to the Future, is finally available as an e-book too! You can learn how to do: 1) a futures wheel exercise 2) scenario analysis 3) forecasting questions about the future 4) vision writing to improve empathy for your future self 5) trend spotting and horizon scanning to see what is going to happen in your fields of interest 6) how to talk with your future self 7) a dozen other methods and futures exercises! Check it out on Leanpub! leanpub.com/yourmaptothefutu…

I never thought an ear cleaner would make me think about the future of healthcare, but here we are! This is the new Bebird ear cleaner. It has a tiny camera that connects to your smartphone, allowing you to see inside your ear in real time and record HD videos about it. But here's what I find fascinating about it: It can essentially function as a basic digital otoscope! That's the instrument physicians use to examine your ear canal and eardrum. Think about what this could mean for patients. Instead of trying to describe an ear problem over the phone, you could record a video and share it with your physician. It could make remote consultations more useful, and potentially save unnecessary visits. We often imagine the future of healthcare arriving through sophisticated medical devices and groundbreaking technologies. But sometimes, it arrives disguised as an ordinary household gadget. As always: I don't accept sponsorship or payments for sensor reviews; I only ask for a sensor to test.

Anthropic is serious about its efforts in drug design with AI. Over the past several months, they have partnered with six organizations and also started drug discovery efforts of their own, including programs for rare childhood forms of muscular dystrophy. They shared very practical use cases too about how companies have been using Claude. 1) Generate Biomedicines: New genetic design for CAR T-cell therapy to allow immune cells to make roughly 10 times as many receptors and kill tumor cells more efficiently. 2) Divergence Labs: To generate roughly 35,000 antibody designs in about a month to be narrowed down and tested. 3) Enveda: Over tests on 1,061 pages of documentation, Claude caught all 11 issues that human reviewers had spotted—and flagged seven they’d missed. In the process, this method reduced human review time by 89%, from over 25 hours to less than three. Source: anthropic.com/research/early…

Everyone talks about AI in medicine. Every week brings another model, another benchmark, another demonstration of something AI can suddenly do better, faster, or more cheaply than before. But understanding the context around this breakthrough technology when news either talks about doomsday scenarios or AI replacing physicians is challenging. However, a few broader ideas can help make sense of the constant stream of developments. If you understand these, you understand more than 95% of people in this field. Here is my newest YouTube video: youtu.be/FIixIZx4QmQ

I received a lovely recognition from JMIR Publications: being ranked among the top 1% of authors in its history based on scientific citations. I still remember being in Toronto in 2009, listening to Gunther Eysenbach share his vision for the future of scientific publishing in the midst of the digital health revolution. I've spent much of my career trying to understand where medicine and healthcare are heading, and helping others prepare for those futures. I'm happy that over the years I may have contributed to that vision through my own scientific work. Grateful to all my co-authors and collaborators who have been part of this journey!

A new study found that there is a big difference in the adoption of AI scribes across medical specialties: It was highest in community internal medicine (67%), community general pediatrics (69%), and academic neurology (53%), and lowest in academic general surgery (16%), obstetrics and gynecology (18%), and psychiatry (19%).  But what could be the reason for that? 1. Conversational vs procedural medicine AI scribes (designed to convert conversations into clinical documentation) may offer greater value when history-taking and counseling dominate an encounter, rather than physical procedures and examinations. 2. Documentation burden vs sensitivity For example, psychiatry is an extremely conversation-intensive specialty, so one might expect exceptionally high adoption. However, the very conversations that could make scribes useful are also highly sensitive.  The more suitable a clinical encounter is for transcription, the less suitable it may sometimes be for recording. 3. Community vs academic medicine Community clinicians may have more standardized, high-volume outpatient encounters and greater incentives to reduce repetitive documentation. All in all, it's great to see more evidence piling up behind AI scribes. The study: nature.com/articles/s41746-0…

With the rise of digital technologies, such as AI, robotics, VR/AR, telemedicine, 3D-printing, portable diagnostics, or health sensors and wearables, the entire structure of healthcare, as well as the roles of patients and doctors, will fundamentally shift from the current status quo. In the infographics below, I summarized the cornerstones of the coming changes, comparing the current, traditional healthcare system, its structure, and its roles with the modern healthcare system characterized by digital health. My question is always the same: what have I missed?

What a digital health evolution! A drug that used to require hospital visits for IV infusions can now be started at home using a wearable injector! The FDA has just approved a new way of administering AbbVie's Skyrizi, an existing treatment for people with moderate-to-severe Crohn's disease. Until now, patients starting this treatment needed three IV infusions at the point of care. With the newly approved option, they can administer the medication under their skin using a small device worn on the body, even at home. It's not a new drug, but a more convenient way of receiving an existing treatment. A real digital health success story. Source: news.abbvie.com/2026-10-23-U…