Sari Altschuler
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sarialtschuler.bsky.social
Sari Altschuler
@sarialtschuler.bsky.social
2.2K followers 1.2K following 28 posts
Associate Prof, Director of Health, Humanities, and Society Program at Northeastern. The Medical Imagination (Penn Press, 2018) + Before Disability: A History of American Citizenship (Penn Press, 2026). Coeditor: Keywords for Health Humanities (NYU, 2023).
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sarialtschuler.bsky.social
Sari Altschuler @sarialtschuler.bsky.social · Dec 2
So excited to see this collaboration with brilliant colleagues published in the Lancet today!

Here's our discussion of the humanities skills (esp. narrative + editing) healthcare practitioners will need in the age of AI scribes. @iandarin.bsky.social @mariaa.bsky.social @laurenfklein.bsky.social
Clinician as editor: notes in the era of AI scribes Every clinician has a strategy. Between patients, before going home, late at night—clinical notes must be written. They are essential for recording patient visits, ensuring continuity of care, arriving at accurate diagnoses, and facilitating communication between doctors, as well as providing medico-legal protection and enabling reimbursement. But these notes are increasingly burdensome to write, thanks in part to the electronic health record (EHR). Artificial intelligence (AI) scribes—computational systems that record clinical encounters and produce narrative summaries—promise much-needed help. Indeed, in many settings, health-care organisations are already adopting this technology. Nevertheless, AI scribes arrive at a moment when the note has already been changing, with legislation increasingly granting patients access to their medical records. Given AI scribes’ promised disruption, it is crucial to consider what clinical notes are and what we want them to be. Both the clinical encounter and the record of it are fundamentally narrative affairs: the clinical encounter unfolds as a story and the note documents that story. Early 19th-century patient records were long, detailed narratives about particular patients and their histories. But these records promise and limitations. became increasingly succinct. Forms replaced paragraphs, and shared terminology replaced personal anecdotes; as historian practice of narrative medicine. John Harley Warner explains, there was a shifting “narrative preference for what was universal and precise over what was This trend continues in notes today with their dispassionate style and specialised terminology, ready to be packaged for health-care coders and billers. A few decades ago, efforts to recentre narrative, especially narrative medicine and narrative-based medicine, emerged to address the depersonalised style of modern medicine exemplified by such notes. So much of medicine i… biases—particularly troubling given medicine’s ongoing research and care disparities. AI-generated summaries can also hallucinate details, making up disturbing interactions if words or phrases resemble training data patterns and inserting inaccuracies. AI can introduce insensitive, incorrect, offensive, or stereotype-based language, gender misattribu- tion, and even diagnostic errors, a set of problems that will be magnified by automation bias—the bias to accept AI decisions and text as more authoritative than human ones. There are also unique challenges posed by the clinical encounter for AI because of, as machine learning researcher Juan Quiroz and his team put it, the “complex nature of the clinical environment and clinical conversation”. In his experience as a practising clinician who is piloting an AI scribe, one of us (IH) has noticed that AI scribes can miss information from longitudinal clinician–patient relationships and non-verbal communication. They sometimes make speech-to-text transcription errors, confuse the clinician’s story with the patient’s, include details not appropriate to the EHR, use potentially judgemental language, omit important details, add plausible but incorrect information, and overstep their purview, making diagnostic suggestions rather than generating summary. Accents make the speech- to-text transcription less accurate. Most AI scribes today work in limited languages. Some of these issues may improve, but the fundamental problem remains: open notes emphasise notes as interpersonal narrative just as AI scribes seek to automate the task. To counter these risks of automation, clinicians using AI scribes should view their new role as note editor—a transition best supported by training in editorial and narrative skills. Most immediately, seasoned clinicians will need to reduce transcription errors, odd word choices, extraneous details, and disclosures inappropriate for the record as well as adding missed details and often rewriting AI-ge…
Reposted by Sari Altschuler
vanhollen.senate.gov
This is what courage in the face of authoritarianism looks like. No university should take Trump's bribe & surrender their integrity — bending the knee to a bully only feeds the beast & puts ALL our rights at risk.

Others should follows MIT’s example ASAP.
MIT rejects Trump administration deal for priority federal funding
MIT is one of the nine schools that were asked to agree to adopt conservative priorities and policies in exchange for funding perks.
www.washingtonpost.com
October 10, 2025 at 5:22 PM
sarialtschuler.bsky.social
Not sure how long this has been going on, but it looks like you can get my book and other great books for less than $10 right now!
August 25, 2025 at 3:35 PM
sarialtschuler.bsky.social
I guess this makes it real! Here's the page for my second book Before Disability: A History of American Citizenship - forthcoming with @pennpress.bsky.social in June 2026.

www.pennpress.org/978151282951...
Before Disability – Penn Press
www.pennpress.org
July 9, 2025 at 7:23 PM
Reposted by Sari Altschuler
ailise-bulfin.bsky.social
This may be of interest to #MedicalHumanities folks (& we'd appreciate a repost) @ucdhumanities.bsky.social @tlrhub.bsky.social @oxmedhum.bsky.social @durhamimh.bsky.social @desfitzgerald.bsky.social @sarialtschuler.bsky.social @riacheyne.bsky.social @aryaray.bsky.social @the-polyphony.bsky.social
ailise-bulfin.bsky.social Ailise Bulfin @ailise-bulfin.bsky.social · Mar 27
Join us for the CSAReps project online launch event Apr 29th & 30th

With esteemed speakers @drcisme.bsky.social @theflyingchild.bsky.social @hazelklarkin.bsky.social @brenrooney.bsky.social Chris Godwin David Hanauer & Emilie Pine

Register: www.eventbrite.ie/e/csareps-pr...
Contact: CSAReps@ucd.ie
April 8, 2025 at 9:48 AM
Reposted by Sari Altschuler
chrismurphyct.bsky.social
Remember, everything is part of the same story.

They need to destroy our democracy and crush dissent because letting billionaires take over the government in order to steal from us isn't popular and a functioning democracy wouldn't allow it.
February 19, 2025 at 11:38 PM
Reposted by Sari Altschuler
govpritzker.illinois.gov
Tyranny requires your fear, your silence, and your compliance.

Democracy requires your courage.
February 20, 2025 at 2:14 AM
Reposted by Sari Altschuler
nlanard.bsky.social
DOGE in practice: Disabled Army veteran who has 4 kids and did 3 tours overseas is fired from his job at Bronx VA hospital
February 18, 2025 at 3:05 PM
Reposted by Sari Altschuler
markey.senate.gov
Tonight we rallied outside the Treasury Department as members of Congress were denied access to the very building where Musk’s minions have been allowed to root around in American’s personal data. No one elected Elon Musk. Dems must vote no on all nominees & fight to stop this.
Senator Markey holds a microphone in front of a crowd Picture of the Treasury Department Senator Markey holds a microphone in front of a crowd holding resist and we will not be silenced and no one voted for Elon Musk signs Nobody Elected Musk sign
February 5, 2025 at 2:52 AM
Reposted by Sari Altschuler
aoc.bsky.social
It’s important to know that a lot of productive activity is happening in person and offline, too.

Not all of it can be broadcast online, but we’ve had hundreds of people showing up to our trainings, mobilizations, and more.

Keep going. Tyranny is eroded by a sea of small acts. Everything matters.
January 30, 2025 at 4:03 AM
sarialtschuler.bsky.social
THIS.

Call your representatives today. They are counting, and it matters.
rebeccasolnit.bsky.social Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · Jan 28
Read, share, act.
January 28, 2025 at 6:55 PM
Reposted by Sari Altschuler
atrupar.com
Jim Acosta announces on air that he's leaving CNN and says, "it is never a good time to bow down to a tyrant ... don't give in to the lies."
January 28, 2025 at 4:01 PM
Reposted by Sari Altschuler
laurenfklein.bsky.social
More new work! This one, in the Lancet, about what clinicians can learn from the humanities when confronted with AI scribes, is a collab w/ @sarialtschuler.bsky.social, Ian Huntingdon, and @mariaa.bsky.social. Also, a new area for me. And a 🧵 obvs 1/

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
Clinician as editor: notes in the era of AI scribes
Every clinician has a strategy. Between patients, before going home, late at night—clinical notes must be written. They are essential for recording patient visits, ensuring continuity of care, arriving at accurate diagnoses, and facilitating communication between doctors, as well as providing medico-legal protection and enabling reimbursement. But these notes are increasingly burdensome to write, thanks in part to the electronic health record (EHR). Artificial intelligence (AI) scribes—computational systems that record clinical encounters and produce narrative summaries—promise much-needed help.
www.thelancet.com
December 18, 2024 at 8:34 PM
sarialtschuler.bsky.social
Just because you can go from Boston to NYC and back in the same day doesn’t mean you should.
December 16, 2024 at 9:40 PM
Reposted by Sari Altschuler
laurenfklein.bsky.social
So interesting to think with practicing clinicians (and @sarialtschuler.bsky.social and @mariaa.bsky.social) on how AI scribes are shifting roles and skillsets, and how ideas from the humanities about narrative and editing are what's required
mariaa.bsky.social Maria Antoniak @mariaa.bsky.social · Dec 2
New ✍️ from @sarialtschuler.bsky.social, Ian Huntington, @laurenfklein.bsky.social, and me!

An interdisciplinary reflection in The Lancet on the shifting narrative roles of clinicians amidst increased use of automated medical scribes and increased patient access to notes.

#nlp #mlsky #healthcare
Page 1 of the article. Page 2 of the article.
December 2, 2024 at 4:11 PM
sarialtschuler.bsky.social
So excited to see this collaboration with brilliant colleagues published in the Lancet today!

Here's our discussion of the humanities skills (esp. narrative + editing) healthcare practitioners will need in the age of AI scribes. @iandarin.bsky.social @mariaa.bsky.social @laurenfklein.bsky.social
Clinician as editor: notes in the era of AI scribes Every clinician has a strategy. Between patients, before going home, late at night—clinical notes must be written. They are essential for recording patient visits, ensuring continuity of care, arriving at accurate diagnoses, and facilitating communication between doctors, as well as providing medico-legal protection and enabling reimbursement. But these notes are increasingly burdensome to write, thanks in part to the electronic health record (EHR). Artificial intelligence (AI) scribes—computational systems that record clinical encounters and produce narrative summaries—promise much-needed help. Indeed, in many settings, health-care organisations are already adopting this technology. Nevertheless, AI scribes arrive at a moment when the note has already been changing, with legislation increasingly granting patients access to their medical records. Given AI scribes’ promised disruption, it is crucial to consider what clinical notes are and what we want them to be. Both the clinical encounter and the record of it are fundamentally narrative affairs: the clinical encounter unfolds as a story and the note documents that story. Early 19th-century patient records were long, detailed narratives about particular patients and their histories. But these records promise and limitations. became increasingly succinct. Forms replaced paragraphs, and shared terminology replaced personal anecdotes; as historian practice of narrative medicine. John Harley Warner explains, there was a shifting “narrative preference for what was universal and precise over what was This trend continues in notes today with their dispassionate style and specialised terminology, ready to be packaged for health-care coders and billers. A few decades ago, efforts to recentre narrative, especially narrative medicine and narrative-based medicine, emerged to address the depersonalised style of modern medicine exemplified by such notes. So much of medicine i… biases—particularly troubling given medicine’s ongoing research and care disparities. AI-generated summaries can also hallucinate details, making up disturbing interactions if words or phrases resemble training data patterns and inserting inaccuracies. AI can introduce insensitive, incorrect, offensive, or stereotype-based language, gender misattribu- tion, and even diagnostic errors, a set of problems that will be magnified by automation bias—the bias to accept AI decisions and text as more authoritative than human ones. There are also unique challenges posed by the clinical encounter for AI because of, as machine learning researcher Juan Quiroz and his team put it, the “complex nature of the clinical environment and clinical conversation”. In his experience as a practising clinician who is piloting an AI scribe, one of us (IH) has noticed that AI scribes can miss information from longitudinal clinician–patient relationships and non-verbal communication. They sometimes make speech-to-text transcription errors, confuse the clinician’s story with the patient’s, include details not appropriate to the EHR, use potentially judgemental language, omit important details, add plausible but incorrect information, and overstep their purview, making diagnostic suggestions rather than generating summary. Accents make the speech- to-text transcription less accurate. Most AI scribes today work in limited languages. Some of these issues may improve, but the fundamental problem remains: open notes emphasise notes as interpersonal narrative just as AI scribes seek to automate the task. To counter these risks of automation, clinicians using AI scribes should view their new role as note editor—a transition best supported by training in editorial and narrative skills. Most immediately, seasoned clinicians will need to reduce transcription errors, odd word choices, extraneous details, and disclosures inappropriate for the record as well as adding missed details and often rewriting AI-ge…
December 2, 2024 at 6:16 PM
Reposted by Sari Altschuler
susanrinkunas.com
Some people believe that not voting for Kamala will somehow punish Democratic leadership when it will actually punish abortion seekers, LGBTQ people, immigrants and their families, and, yes, anti-war activists
October 23, 2024 at 5:01 PM
sarialtschuler.bsky.social
Not everything you write feels equally good or important, but I’m really proud of this essay, which is probably the best thing I’ve ever written.

(a little look into the book I'm finishing on disability, race, and citizenship)

www-cambridge-org.ezproxy.neu.edu/core/journal...
This is a composite of three images. The top left shows a picture of the cover of PMLA (journal) with an orange flower. The bottom left image is the beginning of the notes section which features the thanks described above. And the right hand image features a hand on the first page with the title "Babo's 'Mute'-ny: Deaf Culture and Black Testimony in Antebellum America" followed by the first few paragraphs, which can be found at the link in the main post text.
January 12, 2024 at 4:13 PM
sarialtschuler.bsky.social
Americanist friends, look at this amazing Vietnamese- American Emerson by Tammy Nguyen on display right now at the ICA!
December 2, 2023 at 6:31 PM
Reposted by Sari Altschuler
dweimer.bsky.social
Working on a mappy book? Apply for the The Smith Center First Book Workshop in Map History! It's a two-day, in person workshop at the Newberry Library for 3 book writers to help get some great books in map history published! Apply and learn more: newberry.slideroom.com#/dashboard/p...
September 8, 2023 at 4:57 PM
Reposted by Sari Altschuler
jayrosen.bsky.social
From CNN today: "Journalism professor’s six-word mantra is a blueprint for how news outlets should cover the 2024 race."

Not the odds, but the stakes.
Journalism professor’s six-word mantra is a blueprint for how news outlets should cover the 2024 r...
NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen implores newsrooms to organize 2024 campaign coverage around the stakes of the presidential contest — not the horse race.
www.cnn.com
November 15, 2023 at 3:18 PM
Reposted by Sari Altschuler
dfontaine.bsky.social
If anyone is wondering what it has been like to live and work at a public university in Florida for the last few years (and why I quit my job), here’s a piece I wrote for the LRB about the DeSantis admin’s war on education: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
October 11, 2023 at 5:28 PM
sarialtschuler.bsky.social
This is next week!! @sophievasset.bsky.social and I can't wait to host all these brilliant people in Paris @IEAdeParis! (hybrid)

Register here: forms.gle/16mJNc6PZfeP...
sarialtschuler.bsky.social Sari Altschuler @sarialtschuler.bsky.social · Sep 12
We are delighted to announce the second Comparative Health Humanities symposium at Institut d'Études Avancées de Paris (hybrid) on October 5-6th.
The Symposium gathers prominent scholars from the US and France to examine what we can learn about the field across political, social, cultural, and linguistic contexts. Speakers will address topics including race/racism, Asian and African diasporas and health, the environment, data, and health, and health humanities and the health professions. We aim not only to surface differences but to develop a new model for thinking about the health humanities comparatively. Speakers include Eram Alam, Harvard University Sari Altschuler, Northeastern University Rita Charon, Columbia University David Shumway Jones, Harvard University Guillaume Lachenal, Sciences Po Céline Lefève, Université Paris Cité Solène Lellinger, Université Paris Cité Chris Parsons, Northeastern University Paul-André Rosental, Sciences Po Karen Thornber, Harvard University Sophie Vasset, Université Paul Valéry Montpellier Jean-Christian Vinel, Université Paris Cité Simeng Wang, CNRS Patricia Williams, Northeastern University
September 27, 2023 at 4:46 PM
sarialtschuler.bsky.social
My neighborhood is perfectly captured by the vanity plate I just passed: RNADNA.
September 21, 2023 at 9:15 PM
sarialtschuler.bsky.social
Over at NYU Press is the Keywords Now: "Pandemic" collection. I wrote about the changing uses of the word "health" during the pandemic (%#*&!).

Check it out: keywords.nyupress.org/pandemic/ess...

With thanks to Glenn Hendler + Bruce Burgett for the invitation and edits!
Health
For a limited time, read the introduction to Keywords for Health Humanities
keywords.nyupress.org
September 13, 2023 at 5:55 PM