Most private practice podiatrists aren't asking whether AI will change their clinic. They're asking whether they can afford not to find out, while already running on empty. Burnout, overwork, the fear of missing something they should learn, but being scared by the technology itself. That tension is where most of us are sitting right now.
This isn't a clinical review or a tech manifesto. It's a look at what's actually shifted in the last two years, and what it means for how you run your practice.
Across the conversations we're having with members, most are curious but unsure where to begin. A few tools keep coming up: Heidi for notes, Motics for reception, ChatGPT for the odd marketing task. Most are dabbling with one tool. Few have a joined-up approach.
Two years ago it was a novelty. A handful of early adopters tried scribes and were pretty shocked by how effective they were. Then came the fear: GDPR, where this data's going, how it's being processed. There's more understanding now about using these tools securely, and guidance on doing it safely. But the biggest change is that AI has moved into everyone's day-to-day life. Search results come with Gemini before they come with links. Amazon uses it when you shop. It's everywhere, and people are more comfortable with it being part of their lives.
That comfort has brought a new anxiety. Am I using it the best way for my business? Are there things I could be doing less of because of AI? And then there's the noise: agents, tokens, reasoning levels, Claude versus ChatGPT versus Grok. The language is hard to penetrate, and most of us don't have time to decode it. So we freeze.
The real gains are in using AI as a lever, getting more out than you put in. But that puts more emphasis on the quality of what you put in, which is usually a prompt or a question. The difference in performance comes from asking AI to do the right things and making sure the tool you're using is well designed for the job. That's where the work is for podiatrists, finding out exactly what the tool is, understanding its capabilities, and making sure it does the right thing for you.
Hallucinations have improved significantly, but AI can still hallucinate. We can't yet trust it to send out communications without checking first, and we're unlikely ever to trust it to write patient notes without human involvement. There are also tools out there we don't know about yet. One worth exploring is a content-drafting agent for your marketing. It takes a topic, say, why fungal nails keep coming back, and drafts a blog post, a social caption, and a short email newsletter in your voice. You review, edit, add, take away and publish. No patient data, no clinical risk, just hours of writing turned into minutes of editing.
The world is changing rapidly for all of us. Don't overwhelm yourself. Find out about one tool, find out what it can do, find out what's safe to do with it, and do something small if you want to. Don't feel you have to do everything all at once. Claim the time back, and spend it however you choose.