Ioannina, a lakeside town in northern Greece surrounded by mountains, is not the kind of place you expect to find cutting-edge artificial intelligence quietly reshaping medicine. Yet, inside its main public hospital, Dr. Tzimas is doing just that.
Dr. Tzimas is quietly reshaping how medicine is practiced. From spotting rare diseases like Q fever to managing conflicts among junior doctors, Dr. Tzimas has woven AI into the rhythm of daily medical life.
However, he believes that AI will not be able to replace the essential human interactions that are at the heart of his work. “You have to listen to lung sounds, palpate the abdomen, look patients into their eyes,” he says. “AI can’t feel pain responses or smell signs of illness.”
Dr. Tzimas is the director of the Internal Medicine Department at General Hospital of Ioannina “G. Hatzikosta.”
This interview is part of our series How Do You Use AI?, where we ask people one simple question: How do you use AI? No TED Talk nonsense, just real life.
Episode 3: Dr. Thomas Tzimas—AI Pragmatist.
Gizmodo: How does AI fit into your daily medical practice?
Dr. Tzimas: AI acts as an assistant that helps us work faster and more reliably. We feed it solid data, review the output, and proceed if it’s okay. This is particularly helpful when we need to respond to insurance companies about a patient’s situation or send emails to family physicians.
Gizmodo: Can you give a specific example of how AI assists with patient care?
Dr. Tzimas: One major area is drug interactions. There are extensive tables of drug interactions, but they’re difficult to access quickly when you’re with a patient. AI systems can provide this information very easily and without mistakes. It also helps with adjusting dosages for patients with conditions like renal insufficiency or hepatic failure, where normal doses might be harmful.
... continue reading