Medical technology keeps getting more powerful.
CT scans contain enormous amounts of information. AI can analyze images, generate measurements, screen abnormalities, and increasingly automate work that once required highly specialized expertise.
But Thomas Duindam argues that the hardest problem isn’t generating more information.
It’s knowing what to leave out.
Thomas is the CTO and co-founder of TribusMed, where he builds medical imaging software used in planning complex cardiovascular procedures. His background spans biomedical imaging, software engineering, 3D visualization, and, unusually, nearly two decades developing a video game with friends.
That combination led us into a fascinating conversation about what healthcare software gets wrong.
We talk about:
- Why a physician might use your software for only 30 minutes a day, and why that changes everything about product design
- How medical imaging creates massive information overload
- Why clinicians shouldn’t have to understand the complexity underneath the software
- What medical software can learn from video game UX
- How AI-assisted development is commoditizing the act of writing software
- Why domain knowledge and deciding what to build are becoming more valuable than the code itself
- Where AI should automate clinical work and where humans still need control
- Why the final mile between medical information and the patient should remain human
One of the biggest ideas from the conversation is that AI’s job may not be to make more decisions.
It may be to absorb enormous amounts of complexity so the human has a smaller, clearer decision to make.
That distinction matters.
Because regardless of how sophisticated the technology becomes, someone still has to look at the patient, understand what the information means, take responsibility for the recommendation, and explain it to another human being.
That’s the last mile of care.
And Thomas believes we shouldn’t automate it away.
Humanity in the Loop is a series of conversations with the founders, clinicians, engineers, and operators using AI and technology to make people’s lives better, while figuring out what should stay human.
Hosted by Sam Morhaim.