The Knight's Move: How Healthcare Professionals Can Beat AI
AI can already diagnose skin cancer better than dermatologists. It can read X-rays faster than radiologists. It can spot drug interactions that pharmacists miss.
This week, a specialist AI told me something about my own health that explained pretty much everything unusual about me - including why I'm a Clean Language "natural”.
Most of what healthcare professionals do every day - diagnosis, treatment protocols, information provision, information processing - AI is getting better at. Fast.
The UK government’s new 10-year plan for the NHS is full of AI promises. AI scribes to liberate staff from their current burden of bureaucracy and administration. Patients to have a 'doctor in their pocket' in the form of the NHS App… and so on.
So how exactly are healthcare professionals supposed to keep their jobs - and keep doing a great job?
It’s time for the knight’s move.
The One Thing AI Can't Do (Yet)
The knight's move isn't about getting better at what AI already does well. It's about doing something AI fundamentally cannot do - at least, not yet.
Not the obvious things everyone talks about - "empathy" or "human connection." Those are nice-to-haves, but they’re likely to get cut when budgets are tight.
The knight's move is this: help people discover what they don’t know that they know.
Think about it. AI excels at providing information, analysing data, following protocols. But there's one thing it cannot (yet) do: it cannot help a person access their own inner knowledge about their health, their body, their situation.
And, in its rush to info-dump and advise, it doesn’t make people feel heard, which is absolutely critical if you want people to actually follow the lifestyle recommendations that will change their health for the better.
And yes, you’ve guessed it… when health professionals use Clean Language, the people they work with feel heard, and discover what they didn’t know that they knew.
Your Four-Step Move
So what does the knight's move actually look like?
Pause. When someone presents their health concern, resist the urge to immediately provide information or advice.
Ask 2-3 Clean Language questions:
"And what kind of [their word] is that [their word]?"
"And is there anything else about that [their word]?"
Listen to their actual answer. Not what you expect. What they actually say.
Only then offer information, advice, or ask another question.
That's it. Pause. Ask. Listen. Then respond.
This isn't about becoming a therapist or abandoning your medical expertise. It's about accessing the person's own knowledge before you share yours.
Making The Change
When you do this, people don't just receive your advice - they integrate it with what they already know about themselves. And that's when real change becomes possible.
You don't need to be a Clean Language "natural" to make it work. Indeed it probably won't feel natural the first time you try it - it may feel scarily unfamiliar.
But it may well be worth persisting, because while AI gets better at diagnosis, the real challenge in healthcare has always been getting people to change - and change happens when people discover their own, unique, individual reasons for changing.
And Clean Language even works with healthcare professionals. You won't adopt this approach because I've told you to. You'll adopt it because, when you try it, you'll discover your own reasons why it matters.