YMagan MD

Website

YMagan MD Physician. Researcher | Co-founder Alma First | Advancing equity, AI & digital health in primary care

22/10/2026

AI in health care on social media: hype or fear?

Social media is full of misinformation about medicine: what to try, what to buy, what to take. And AI has its own version.

I see patients full time in a safety-net clinic, and a big part of my day is in Spanish. So when I talk about AI, I’m talking about how these tools actually work in a real visit.

Which do you see more in your feed, hype or fear?

¿Qué ve más en sus redes: exageración o miedo?

Views my own.

I've been using ambient AI scribes in clinic for months. I ask for patient consent every single visit, same tool as last...
20/10/2026

I've been using ambient AI scribes in clinic for months. I ask for patient consent every single visit, same tool as last time, still optional, okay if I turn it on?

Then I read California's all-party consent statute again and realized something. The interpreter is a party too. Their voice is being recorded.

So I started asking. The first interpreter I asked told me it was the first time anyone had.

That answer has stayed with me. It's one person, one moment, but it points to something bigger. We build these systems around patients and clinicians, and sometimes the people who make care possible become invisible in the workflow.

Consent isn't momentum. It's a question we ask every time, to everyone in the room.

If you work with interpreters and ambient AI, I'd love to hear how your clinic is thinking about this. Full piece in this week's MedTechxHeart newsletter.

18/10/2026

One resolution on HPV vaccine coverage led to statewide change in California.

It was written by Dr. Catherine Gutfreund, president of Sonoma-Mendocino-Lake Medical Association, and it’s how she got started in physician advocacy. She shared the story with me at the 2026 CMA House of Delegates California Medical Association

The HPV vaccine prevents cancer. Coverage decides who actually gets it.

Her message to every physician and trainee: come join us.

What would your first resolution be about? Tell me below.

18/10/2026

Medical students, you can join the California Medical Association for free and start physician advocacy in 30 seconds.

At the 2026 CMA House of Delegates, I asked Dr. Catherine Gutfreund Sonoma-Mendocino-Lake Medical Association president of the Sonoma Mendocino Lake County Medical Association, how trainees can get involved. California Medical Association

Join CMA and your local medical society. Go to Advocacy Day. Or sign up for legislative updates and message your legislator in 30 seconds.

“You already know a lot about your patients and how to advocate for them.”

Thank you, Catherine.

Students, which step will you take first? Tell me below.

Views my own.

01/10/2026

National Latino Physician Day is October 1.

Six percent of physicians in the US are Latino. One in five people are. In California it's four in ten people and six in a hundred doctors, and Latinas are under three in a hundred.

I'm a family doctor at a community health center in Northern California, and a big part of my day is in Spanish. I was a patient at a community health center as a teenager, right after my family came from Peru.

Being on both sides of that exam room is why this number matters to me.

If you're a premed or a student who has wondered whether there is room for you in medicine, there is.

Necesitamos más.

If you know someone who needs to hear that today, send them this.

National Latino Physician Day


Views my own.

29/09/2026

Family Medicine Week is this week, and the AAFP asked us to finish the sentence "I was called to family medicine when." This is mine.

Family medicine isn't the specialty you pick when you can't decide. It's the one you pick when you want all of it: women's health, pediatrics, prevention, every age and every level of complexity. About one in five office visits in the US is with a family doctor, around 192 million a year.

I practice at a community health center in Northern California, a big part of my day is in Spanish, and I was a patient at a community health center as a teenager. I get to be the doctor for the baby, the mom and the abuelo, in their language.

If you're in family medicine, finish the sentence in the comments. If you know a student who has been told family medicine is the fallback, send them this.

Patients described are composites. No real patient is identifiable.

AAFP
Bright Zhou, MD, MS
Kaiser Permanente Santa Rosa Family Med
Dr. Elizabeth Kazarian, MD
Dr. Bayo Curry-Winchell, MD, MS



Views my own.

You find out what you actually know about your clinic's AI tools when a patient asks, not when the contract gets signed....
29/09/2026

You find out what you actually know about your clinic's AI tools when a patient asks, not when the contract gets signed.

A patient stopped me with a simple question: where does that recording go? I answered with confidence because it sounded right and because it was what I had been told. It was afterward, in the quiet, that the question kept going.

Every sentence I said in that room came from an agreement I was not part of writing. We are the ones asking patients to consent. We are the ones they trust with the question. And most of us are working from secondhand summaries, not the actual terms.

This week's MedTechxHeart is about the agreements behind the tools, the questions we could not answer, and what it means to ask patients to say yes when we are still learning what yes includes. Link in bio.

What questions have your patients asked that you realized you couldn't fully answer?

Many clinics now use an AI tool that records the visit and writes the doctor's note. I am a family doctor at a community...
24/09/2026

Many clinics now use an AI tool that records the visit and writes the doctor's note. I am a family doctor at a community health center, and I use one. A patient asked me where that recording goes. Here is the path, step by step.

Step 1: the recording goes to the company that makes the tool. Their software turns it into text, and then into a draft of the note.

Step 2: the draft comes back to your doctor, who checks it, fixes it, and signs it. The signed note goes into your chart.

Step 3: the recording is deleted after a set amount of time. How long depends on the clinic.

Who decides all of this? A contract between the clinic and the company, called a Business Associate Agreement, or BAA. A federal privacy law called HIPAA protects your health information, and the BAA is what makes the company follow that law too.

You are allowed to ask: is my visit being recorded, who gets the recording, and how long is it kept. And for those of us asking patients to say yes: we need to know our own clinic's answers.

Full piece on my Substack, link in bio.

You find out what you actually know about your clinic's AI tools when a patient asks, not when the contract gets signed....
22/09/2026

You find out what you actually know about your clinic's AI tools when a patient asks, not when the contract gets signed.

A patient stopped me mid-visit this year. "Where does that recording go?" I answered confidently. I told them it stays in their chart, gets deleted after a set period, only their care team sees it. They nodded and we moved on.

But afterward, the question kept going. Every sentence I'd said with such confidence came from an agreement I wasn't part of writing. An agreement I still hadn't read.

We're the ones asking patients to say yes. We're the ones they trust with their questions. And most of us are working with tools whose full terms we've never actually seen. That gap matters, not just for compliance, but because trust in these rooms runs through us first.

This week's MedTechxHeart digs into what's actually in those agreements, what ambient AI scribes do with recordings, and why understanding the contract changes what consent really means. Link in bio.

Have you read the AI agreement at your clinic? Let's talk about it.

An AI writes my medical notes now. It gave me back my afternoons. It did not give me back my evenings.Every doctor has a...
16/09/2026

An AI writes my medical notes now. It gave me back my afternoons. It did not give me back my evenings.

Every doctor has a second job you never see: the inbox. Test results, refill requests, faxed reports retyped by hand, forms for work and school, insurance approvals. Nobody pays for it. All of it is your care.

Without that work letter, someone loses wages.

Without that referral, someone does not get their walker.

It is measured. One study followed 141 primary care doctors for four years. Inbox time went up 24 percent.

Patient portal questions went up 55 percent. Over the same years, those doctors cut back their clinic hours.

I took ten days off with full coverage. Two days after I came back, my inbox was bigger than when I left. That is not a doctor who needs better boundaries. That is a job with too much in it.

We automated the note because it demoed well. The inbox is where the hours go. If you build AI for health care, aim it there. And keep one rule: let the tool write the first draft, never let it make the decision.

Full essay at the link in my bio.

Views my own. Not medical advice.

Address


00911

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when YMagan MD posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

  • Want your business to be the top-listed health & beauty business?

Share