A former director who oversaw research at the Mayo Clinic accuses the healthcare system of retaliation after she raised the alarm about “fundamental lapses” in evaluating AI tools for patient care and research.
In a July 6 lawsuit filed in federal court, Traci Tamiko Eto, MA, claims that her insistence on “adhering to federal and institutional standards regarding AI governance and the IRB [internal review board] process” led to her firing.
The legal battle highlights the crucial oversight role that medical institutions play in evaluating whether various types of AI software are appropriate to be used for clinical and research purposes.
“The lawsuit touches on issues that are top of mind for clinicians,” said Taylor N. Anderson, MD, clinical informatics fellow at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, Oregon, who isn’t involved in the case. “How do I know how much can I trust AI? Has it gone through the proper procedures? What is my responsibility in implementing it in my clinical practice?”
“This case is about an institution, one of the renowned medical institutions in the world, that decided being first and being fastest in AI is more important than following the rules and preserving the integrity of your process,” Eto’s attorney Artur Davis, JD, of Birmingham, Alabama, told Medscape Medical News. “She wants Mayo to do better, and she wants Mayo to live up to the standards that it claims it adheres to.”
Mayo Clinic declined to...
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