OpenAI VP: How AI Changed My Family’s Fight Against Cancer | Ashley Alexander

Dear subscribers,

Today, I want to share a new episode with Ashley.

Ashley is the VP of Product at OpenAI for health and this is a very special episode for me. We talked about how we both use AI to help our parents fight cancer — including preparing for doctor visits, researching treatments, and coping with our emotions as caregivers. Both of Ashley’s parents got diagnosed with cancer in a single week and it was really inspiring to hear how she took care of them.

Watch now on YouTube, Apple, and Spotify.

Ashley and I talked about:

• (00:00) How her dad’s cancer led Ashley to OpenAI
• (07:15) Why I talk to AI more than my own mom
• (09:41) Are doctors annoyed when patients bring AI research?
• (14:17) Is AI really about to cure cancer?
• (19:12) Should you trust ChatGPT with your health records?
• (25:38) How ChatGPT caught a risky treatment before it was given
• (28:00) Why hospitals still use faxes and CDs
• (36:16) What Ashley types into ChatGPT during her dad’s appointments
• (41:09) Making time for your parents with a demanding job

I’m proud to partner with Granola

I use Granola to record my mom’s medical conversations, with her care team’s permission. Having notes we can revisit later helps us keep track of what was said, the decisions we made, and what to follow up on.

Try Granola for Free

Top takeaways I learned from this episode

1. “Both of my parents got diagnosed with cancer within a week of each other.” Ashley took a month off from work to take care of them after and doesn’t regret it. She also emphasized taking time off for yourself as the caregiver: “Even with AI, you have to make sure that you’re budgeting time for your own mental health.”
2. “Are you deluding yourself that you’re actually that busy?” Ashley had an always-on life until her parents got sick. Now she blocks time for her dad’s appointments, even as a busy executive at OpenAI. “I’m lucky that not once have I ever gotten pushback at work about this.” When she started making time for her parents, she realized, “Maybe some of those work meetings didn’t need me there.”

1. Share how you’re dealing with cancer and people will come out to help. For example, a friend’s father-in-law helped Ashley find the Stanford specialist who became her dad’s doctor. “You don’t know [who can help] until you share,” she said. I’ve found the same with my mom: Sharing her situation has helped me connect with oncologists and experts.

1. “I didn’t feel like I was in the driver’s seat of what was most important to me, which is my father’s life.” Ashley was weighing surgery and radiation for her dad, but his lung and heart specialists weren’t set up to share information and she had to piece it together herself. Give AI the patient’s full medical history and use it to have informed discussions with their medical team.
2. Give ChatGPT your medical records to flag possible conflicts before treatment. Ashley recounted how her former boss, Fidji Simo, caught a conflict using ChatGPT right before treatment. Her doctor hadn’t seen the relevant history elsewhere in her record. Ashley has seen multiple cases of this happening.
3. Do your homework before the appointment. Ashley uses ChatGPT to new therapies for his lung disease before doct appointments. She could then ask his doctor about the therapies to get his opinion on whether they’re viable options.
4. “What question should I be asking right now?” Ashley keeps ChatGPT open during her dad’s telehealth appointments. When the doctor mentioned “left wedge resection,” she looked up the unfamiliar lung-surgery term on the spot. “I’d sort of be educating myself, and then I could make better use of the time.”
5. Give your parent’s records their own space in ChatGPT. Ashley uses project-only memory to keep her dad’s records separate from her own health conversations. She also gets her dad’s consent before uploading records and redacts details he wants kept private.
6. Keep one care summary you can pull up under pressure. My /fuck-cancer skill keeps a one-page Google Doc on my mom’s care and Ashley described how she has a similar doc that keeps track of her parents’ latest medications, lab results, appointment notes, and more to discuss with their care team.
7. Have ChatGPT check for new research every week. Set up a recurring task in ChatGPT for your condition and ask it to search ClinicalTrials.gov and other research sources for new trials and treatments. My /fuck-cancer skill does this for free out of the box.

Watch the episode now and subscribe if you enjoyed the interview.