Jack Kincaid

In this episode, Priten speaks with Jack Kincaid, a third-year medical student at Harvard Medical School, about navigating clinical training in an era of powerful AI tools. Jack shares his perspective on Open Evidence (a medical LLM), Harvard's AI Sandbox, and the tension between leveraging new technology and developing as a physician.Key Takeaways:AI tools can accelerate diagnostic reasoning—but training still requires struggle. Platforms like Open Evidence can reliably synthesize evidence and suggest diagnoses, but reflexively reaching for them risks stunting the critical thinking that clinical practice demands. The goal should be building heuristics strong enough to stay present with patients, not offloading cognition.Transparency about surveillance matters. From Canvas quiz monitoring in college to clinical logging systems, students often don't know what's being tracked. Jack's experience as a TA revealed the extent of visibility administrators have—and raised questions about whether strategic ambiguity helps maintain standards or just breeds anxiety.Institutions are starting to take AI governance seriously. Harvard Medical School's AI Sandbox gives trainees access to multiple LLMs in a secure environment that protects curriculum materials and personal data (though it's not HIPAA compliant). This kind of infrastructure signals that leadership is thinking carefully about responsible use.Career concerns about AI replacement are real. For students considering imaging-heavy specialties like radiology or radiation oncology, the specter of AI "scope creep" is a recurring topic in conversations with attendings and senior trainees. It's not paranoia—it's a practical factor in career planning.Discovery often happens peer-to-peer. Jack first learned about Open Evidence by glancing at a classmate's screen during a simulation exercise. The most impactful tools aren't always introduced through formal curricula—they spread through observation and word of mouth.About Jack Kincaid:John “Jack” Kincaid is a trainee in the Harvard/MIT MD-PhD Program at Harvard Medical School interested in the intersection of diet and disease. Jack received B.A. (Nutritional Biochemistry and Metabolism) and M.S. (Nutrition) degrees from Case Western Reserve University in 2021, where he helped investigate the impact of obesity and obesogenic diet on cancer development in the laboratory of Nathan Berger at Case Comprehensive Cancer Center. Concomitantly, Jack worked with a variety of food access and health literacy groups including CWRU Food Recovery Network and Cooking Matters STL. After leaving CWRU, Jack relocated to the UK to train as a postgraduate in the group of Sir Stephen O’Rahilly at the University of Cambridge Institute of Metabolic Science, studying the neuroendocrine regulation of human appetitive behavior and body weight. As a physician scientist, Jack hopes to leverage basic science and clinical medicine to help address the growing burden of diet-associated illnesses as well as develop safe, effective treatments for metabolic disease.