For years, technologists and computer scientists have promised an AI revolution that would transform the very basis of how we imagine and administer modern medicine. AI-driven advancements in medical error rates, diagnostic accuracy, or disease outbreak detection could potentially save thousands of lives. But health AI also carries the potential for exacerbating deep systemic biases if left unchecked. The Doctor and the Algorithm combines insights from science and technology studies, critical algorithm studies, and public interest informatics to better understand the promise and peril of health AI. The book draws on case studies in automated diagnostics, algorithmic pain measurement, AI-driven drug discovery, and death prediction to investigate how health AI is made, promoted, and justified. It explores the enthusiastic promises of health AI marketing communication and medical futurism while also analyzing the inequitable outcomes new AI technology often creates for already marginalized communities. Finally, the book closes with specific recommendations for regulatory frameworks that might support more ethical and equitable approaches to health AI in the future. Interweaving textual analysis and original informatics, The Doctor and the Algorithm offers a sobering analysis of the promise of medical AI against the real and unintended consequences that deep medicine can bring for patients, providers, and public health alike.

Chronic pain is a medical mystery, debilitating to patients and a source of frustration for practitioners. It often eludes both cause and cure and serves as a reminder of how much further we have to go in unlocking the secrets of the body. A new field of pain medicine has evolved from this landscape, one that intersects with dozens of disciplines and subspecialties ranging from psychology and physiology to anesthesia and chiropractic medicine. Over the past three decades, researchers, policy makers, and practitioners have struggled to define this complex and often contentious field as they work to establish standards while navigating some of the most challenging philosophical issues of Western science. In The Politics of Pain Medicine: A Rhetorical-Ontological Inquiry, S. Scott Graham offers a rich and detailed exploration of the medical rhetoric surrounding pain medicine. Graham chronicles the work of interdisciplinary pain management specialists to found a new science of pain and a new approach to pain medicine grounded in a more comprehensive biospychosocial model. His insightful analysis demonstrates how these materials ultimately shape the healthcare community's understanding of what pain medicine is, how the medicine should be practiced and regulated, and how practitioner-patient relationships are best managed. It is a fascinating, novel examination of one of the most vexing issues in contemporary medicine.