Physicians call for a GenAI oath in healthcare 

Glenna Crooks, PhD and Paul Hambly, EVP of Supply at Toluna

AI is transforming industries across the board, and healthcare is no exception. This is the eighth in a series of articles reviewing physicians’ perspectives on GenAI. This article reveals the depth of physicians’ belief in the power of medical oaths and uncovers a profound trust gap that hits at the essence of what it means to be engaged in a healing enterprise.  

A proposal for a GenAI oath  

An oath for GenAI in healthcare aligns with traditional medical oaths, which date back to the Hippocratic Oath from the fifth century BCE. The fundamental elements include:  

Physicians support taking a GenAI oath 

When asked if they would take an oath concerning the use of GenAI, 73% said that physicians should, and 77% said that physicians would. Among the 25% who would decline, the majority (86%) would do so because they viewed it as redundant and merely symbolic. The remaining physicians had liability concerns (8%), disagreed with how the responsibilities were framed (3%), distrusted GenAI or its governance (2%), or said that it was not relevant to their role (1%). 

Physicians support oath-taking by other ecosystem players 

Physicians want others in healthcare to make similar oath-type commitments. When asked which players should take the oath, they named:   

Oath-taking and trust 

Oaths are a method for demonstrating trustworthiness, and based on the survey data, trust is most commonly found between physicians and other clinical care providers.  Most physicians say that physicians, nurses, and pharmacists should take the oath and will do so, indicating that there is very little gap between what physicians want and expect.  

We refer to this as the responsibility-expectation gap, characterized by a measure of trust.  Given physicians’ close working relationships with other clinicians, it is not surprising that the gap is so small for nurses (2 points) and pharmacists (11 points). Notably, physicians themselves are the only group that physicians believe will take the oath, even if they disagree with the idea, yielding the only negative (-4) expectation gap.  

The trust gap 

Survey results revealed a striking disconnect between physicians and other ecosystem players. The responsibility-expectation gap ranges from a low of 23 points for Clinical Research Scientists to a high of 54 points for Insurance Company Reviewers.  

Why the disconnect? 

The answer lies in understanding healthcare as what one physician called “a sacred endeavor.” For over 2,000 years, medicine has evolved intentionally slowly: from Hippocratic observations to evidence-based clinical trials. This conservative approach exists because a physician’s job requires moral conduct and accountability, as described in medical oaths. 

Technology, in contrast, operates on a “move fast and break things” ethos that prioritizes rapid iteration and acceptable failure rates. This philosophy works in most industries. But in healthcare, “breaking things” can mean harming people. 

Our survey data shows physicians understand this cultural collision: 

What physicians want 

The survey reveals that physicians aren’t anti-technology; they’re pro-accountability. They want partners who understand that entering healthcare means entering a healing tradition that predates recorded history.