Harvard, Google team up to tap the collective mind in medicine
A 49-year-old man notices a painless rash on his shoulder but doesn’t seek care. Months later, during a routine physical, his doctor sees the rash and diagnoses it as a benign skin condition. More time passes, and during a routine screening test, a nurse points out the spot to another physician, who urges the patient to see a dermatologist. The dermatologist performs a biopsyhe pathology report reveals a noncancerous lesion. The dermatologist seeks a second reading of the pathology slides. This time, a drastically different verdict: atypical invasive melanoma. The patient is immediately started on chemotherapy. Weeks later, a physician friend asks him why he’s not on immunotherapy instead. The man consults his oncologist, who agrees it might work. The man is still in treatment. Though this scenario is hypothetical, real-life versions of it play out hundreds or thousands of times a day across America — not because of negligence, but...