Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh addresses the inauguration of Mahajan Imaging and Labs’ integrated diagnostics centre, at Noida, in Gautam Buddh Nagar district, Uttar Pradesh, on August 22, 2026.
| Photo Credit: PTI
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday (August 22, 2026) spoke about the growing tendency among people to turn to the internet and ChatGPT to diagnose their ailments, and, on a lighter note, narrated how patients in rural areas often describe symptoms to doctors in ways that can make diagnosis challenging.
Addressing the inauguration of a Mahajan Imaging and Labs facility here, Mr. Singh said people now often search their symptoms online before visiting a doctor.
“Now ChatGPT has also come. Whatever happens, the first thing people do is to search online,” he said, adding that increased awareness about one’s health was a positive development but also posed a challenge.
Mr. Singh said a person experiencing mild chest pain could search the symptom online and soon conclude that he was suffering from a “serious” heart disease, although such pain could also result from anxiety or muscle-related problems.
He said patients sometimes reached doctors not merely with their symptoms but with the diagnosis they had arrived at through internet searches.
“Instead of telling the doctor about the symptoms, the patient comes with his internet research and tells the doctor the name of the disease,” Singh said.
Speaking on a lighter note, Singh said patients also sometimes described their problems to doctors in colloquial terms, particularly in rural areas.
He gave the example of a villager telling a doctor that he was experiencing “dhuk dhuk” in his chest.
“In the entire medical education, the doctor has never heard or studied about a symptom called ‘dhuk dhuk’,” Singh said, explaining that patients could find it difficult to accurately express what they were experiencing.
He said such situations made proper diagnostic testing even more important.
Singh also narrated another lighter moment involving a patient who had gone to a doctor after reading about his symptoms on the internet and said he believed he had “claustrophobia”. The doctor then suggested “MRI scan” to begin the treatment and the patient instantly agreed.
The doctor responded that if he really had claustrophobia, he would not have agreed to undergo an MRI scan, Singh said.
The Defence Minister said these examples showed why “technology and medical expertise needed to work together”.
He said modern machines could help doctors understand what was happening inside the human body, but there was still no machine that could understand what was going on in a patient’s mind.
“Machines make diagnosis better, but understanding the patient, giving him confidence and courage can only be done by medical professionals,” Singh said.
“Technology and emotion together make the medical profession unique,” he said, stressing that doctors had to use their experience, sensitivity and compassion while treating patients.
Singh also underlined the growing responsibility of healthcare professionals as technology, AI and digital diagnostics expand.
He said diagnostic data was highly sensitive and protecting patients’ health information and privacy was a primary responsibility.
He also called for transparency in the use of artificial intelligence, avoidance of bias and priority to patient safety.
“When a person comes for a test, he brings his anxiety, fear and hope. Protecting that trust is the biggest responsibility of everyone in healthcare,” Singh said.
He stressed that there should be no unnecessary tests, wrong reports or incorrect diagnoses and patients should never feel that they were being treated merely as “a number”.
Published – August 22, 2026 04:02 pm IST