Is Not Asking About ChatGPT the Next Malpractice Risk? With Berkeley Law's Vincent Joralemon
Episode Description
Your patient asked a chatbot about their medication before they asked you. If something goes wrong, the law may care less about what the chatbot said than about whether you asked.
In this episode of How I Doctor, Offcall co-founder Dr. Graham Walker sits down with Vincent Joralemon, director of the Life Sciences Law and Policy Center at Berkeley Law. Vincent is a former high school biology teacher who went on to law school at Berkeley and Harvard. In his recent paper in npj Digital Medicine, “Who bears liability when AI gives bad prescribing advice?”, co-authored with Julia Etkin, he argues that the learned intermediary doctrine works differently depending on whether AI sits behind the clinician or advises patients directly, and that clinicians may be required to screen patients for AI-sourced prescribing advice. Graham expected the answer to be technology companies, but Vincent’s argument lands back on physicians.
Vincent explains the learned intermediary doctrine, the legal principle that already makes physicians the filter between drug manufacturers and patients, and why the same logic is likely to govern AI. He and Graham work through what happens when a physician follows an algorithm, when one overrides it, and how a note explaining your reasoning can be the strongest protection you have. They also get into whether asking “What did ChatGPT tell you?” is on its way to becoming a standard of care question, what de-skilling means in legal terms, and what a physician should do when a hospital mandates an AI tool they know is flawed.
The conversation closes with rapid-fire predictions, including a malpractice case that names both a physician and a chatbot company, and Vincent’s answer on the biggest legal mistake a physician can make with AI right now.
What You’ll Learn
- Why the learned intermediary doctrine is the foundation of AI liability for physicians
- Why patients’ tendency to trust chatbots more than traditional sources may change a physician’s duty to ask about them
- How to protect yourself when you override an AI recommendation, or follow one
- What the law may expect of you when your hospital requires a tool you believe is faulty
- Why Vincent expects settlements before court decisions, and a physician and chatbot company named in the same suit
📄 Read the paper: Etkin J, Joralemon V. “Who bears liability when AI gives bad prescribing advice?” npj Digital Medicine. 2026;9:448. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-026-02854-5
This episode is presented in partnership with eNavvi, a clinician-built digital prescribing platform.
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