A doctor’s confession…
or why I started a chatbot company on female health
I always loved being in the operating theatre, I was never afraid of blood or working long hours. As a medical student, I was quite idealistic and wanted to help people. I mean really help them with compassion, empathy and caring. Today, I am surrounded by technology and I spend most of my day discussing new potentials within healthcare that artificial intelligence can provide and advocating that chatbots can deal with sensitive and personal healthcare issues.
You might think I lost hope in the human race entirely and turned towards the neutral touch of bits.
During my university years, I was giving lectures on sexual health in elementary and high schools as a volunteer. These were like the “awkward lessons” or “enlightment class” we all remember from our youth. I talked about sexually transmitted infections, birth control, including the condom and the pill. Often teachers joined my class.
For the students it was a hard discussion and for me, it was like a never-ending fight against all the myths, misunderstandings and misconceptions about sexual health. On top of that were the barriers to communication created by embarrassment and shame.
And every time I went out there to talk about how the reproductive organs work during the menstrual cycle, how you actually get pregnant, if and when you should take the pill and why young girls should use a condom even for their very first time, I also understood better how communication and education on this topic empowers young women.
I also started to spend a bit more time in obstetrics and gynaecology during my university years. I spent more time in ambulatory care assisting practitioners and meeting with tons of patients. Most of them just came in for simple check-ups, sometimes with a nasty infection, sometimes for emergency contraception, or sometimes to get information about abortion.
For me, this was a great opportunity to learn, but to them, I was just one extra person in the room who they did not know.
It was not the most comfortable environment for these people to talk about their STIs or birth control.
About the same time, I also started to take better care of myself in terms of sexual health. My mother never took me to a gynaecologist, so when I got my first appointment it was completely my own choice with nobody there to guide me or to comfort me.
The truth is, no matter how much time I spent in and around hospitals as a student, I was still a woman who had to undress and get the tests done. I felt a bit scared and I could not really ease up emotionally. I needed advice on various questions and I had to force myself to clear my mind to be able to communicate properly with my doctor. And since then, it is the same for every single visit, even after I finished medical school.
When the Facebook Messenger platform opened up I knew it was not only a great opportunity for businesses but a great opportunity for healthcare.
I instantly thought about how I felt when I was a patient, I understood it from a doctor’s perspective, and I remembered the young people who I talked to about sexual health. I saw an opportunity: what if the comfortable environment that women need to talk about reproductive health could provided by someone else - not a human doctor but a friendly bot? What if you never had to feel ashamed and embarrassed again to ask questions? What if doctors could have help to take care of patients and educate them?
Chatbots are a perfect way to scale up communication and understand how people behave when they are in a safe space.
By automating some parts of the conversation that a patient would normally have with their doctor, you give doctors more time to focus on the emotional needs of patients and you give patients the confidence to ask whenever and whatever they want, even repeatedly. And here we are:
Our mission at MediLad is to create an artificial assistant to support women with reproductive health queries.
To dismantle the barriers and to make communication easy and comfortable about sexual health.
To empower both patients and doctors in situations that are emotionally difficult.
Chat with Izzy and see for yourself.
I have the same compassion and empathy towards our users as a doctor has for their patients. I’m still the same idealistic person I was when I started medical school. I hope that many people will benefit from what we do.
