Some clinical questions have several factors to weigh: a patient whose comorbidities pull in different directions, a presentation that could go more than one way, a page of labs that only resolves when you read it as a whole. These have to be worked through.
Today, we are introducing Thinking Mode in Doximity Ask, built specifically for questions that need deeper reasoning.
What Thinking Mode does
Before responding, Thinking Mode works across the variables, considers competing evidence, and traces the clinical decision pathway. It takes a little longer and shows you the work, because there are more factors in play and more paths to consider before an answer is reliable.
When it helps
Thinking Mode is for questions with several factors at once:
- ICU evaluations, where several problems are in play at once
- Patients with multiple comorbidities, where each decision depends on the others
- Ambiguous presentations that could reasonably resolve in more than one direction
- Extensive lab data that has to be read together
A page of labs is the clearest example. Upload that report straight into Ask, and Thinking Mode works across the whole document rather than a single line.
When the answer runs through numbers
Some clinical questions depend on calculation, and that is where most AI tools are least reliable. Thinking Mode works differently. Its step-by-step reasoning lets it work through arithmetic deliberately, and it can use a calculator when a problem calls for one rather than estimating. When a question depends on real numbers, it computes the answer instead of approximating it.
Ask detects when to switch between modes
You can select Thinking Mode directly at any time. Ask can also recognize when a question has several factors to weigh and switch to it on its own. A multiple-choice board question, a scenario with several factors in play, a question with decimal points in it, a set of pasted lab values, each points to a question that more reasoning will serve.
Thinking Mode is available now
Thinking Mode is available in Doximity Ask now. Open Ask and look for the mode toggle, ask a complex question, and watch as Ask reasons.