Ian Pan, MD, is a Kaggle Grandmaster, radiologist resident at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and a rising star in the medicine and AI field.

Kaggle competitions are international data science competitions that are both very competitive and prestigious. We talk about Ian's path to medicine and AI as well as the various strategies he’s used to become one of the top coders globally in this burgeoning new field. Ian also gives some great advice on how to get started and we close with some of his exhortations against poor practices in ML today.

This interview was a lot of fun and if you are curious about Kaggle competitions or how to be the best at them, this interview is for you.

Time-Stamps

• 6:20 Initial interests in Radiology
• 12:50 2018 Pneumonia detection Kaggle challenge
• 17:55 Domain expertise not necessary for AI learning
• 20:18 How to approach an AI challenge
• 25:23 The structure of Ian's Kaggle-winning models 
• 28:58 What sets Ian's models apart
• 32:30 Non-medicine endeavors 
• 37:40 Coding Background
• 39:00 Should medical students learn to code
• 42:00 The future of AI in medicine
• 49:10 What’s next for Ian
• 54:07 Necessary changes to AI in medicine
• 57:15 Advice for medical students