Matthew Zirwas, MD on X: "I was wrong about the Midjourney ultra-sound scanner.
Well, maybe not wrong, but at a minimum I missed something obvious because I was thinking like a doctor who's been practicing for 25 years.
And I didn't explain my point well.
First, where I was wrong:
All historical" / X<br>Post
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Matthew Zirwas, MD
@MattZirwas
I was wrong about the Midjourney ultra-sound scanner.
Well, maybe not wrong, but at a minimum I missed something obvious because I was thinking like a doctor who's been practicing for 25 years.
And I didn't explain my point well.
First, where I was wrong:
All historical precendent that showed that widespread screening imaging is net neutral or harmful was imaging that was expensive, inconvenient, gated by physicians and couldn't practically be repeated frequently short term.
If the Midjourney ultrasound is high resolution, harmless, inexpensive and convenient, people can get an initial scan, then if there are abnormalities concerning for cancer, they can get weekly follow up scans to see if it's growing/changing, and if it's not, they can leave it alone.
In retrospect, that is obvious but it never occurred to me.
Now, you'd assume that that approach would have to lead to it being useful and saving lives, and it probably will. But we won't really know it does until we have a couple years of data. Lots of things that seem obvious in medicine end up being wrong once we collect data.
Second, what I didn't explain well:
It's not that I think non-doctors are 'too dumb' to use the results effectively.
Its that historically it was literally impossible to use the results effectively, and that is super, super counterintuitive. It seems obvious that finding stuff early is beneficial, but experience has shown that it isn't.
Here's why:
The vast majority of abnormalities (i.e. possible cancer) isn't cancer - like over 90% of them, ends up being harmless - something thay your body could have handled on it's own.
But the only way to find out was to have invasive, risky procedures to biopsy or remove what was found.
And overall, the side effects from all the risky, invasive procedures to track down the over 90% of stuff that was harmless equal or outweigh the benefit from removing the less than 10% of stuff that wasn't harmless.
If the MIdjourney device can be repeated frequently, like weekly, at a low cost and is harmless, it could negate the need for the risky, invasive procedures.
Not saying it will, but it seems like it could and I confidently posted yesterday that it was a bad idea.
I was wrong to confidently post that.<br>span:not(:empty)~span:not(:empty)]:before:content-['·'] [&>span:not(:empty)~span:not(:empty)]:before:px-1 [&>span:not(:empty)~span:not(:empty)]:before:shrink-0 min-w-0 overflow-hidden">Matthew Zirwas, MD
@MattZirwas
Jun 19
I usually agree with Dr. Locasale.
But not on this.
A $100 full-body ultrasound on asymptomatic people, sold as a wellness service, will open a massive can of financial worms for individuals. You’ll pay around $100 for the scan, there’s a 90% chance they find something you’ll Show more
span:not(:empty)~span:not(:empty)]:before:content-['·'] [&>span:not(:empty)~span:not(:empty)]:before:px-1 [&>span:not(:empty)~span:not(:empty)]:before:shrink-0">4:10 PM · Jun 20, 2026301.8KViews
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