Richard has a lifetime's experience as a medical practitioner and medical educator. He was a GP in Oxfordshire for 35 years and Professor of the Shared Understanding of Medicine at the University of Birmingham. His particular interest is in the deep processes and values which underlie conversations between patients and medical practitioners, and how these will be affected by the increasing use of generative artificial intelligence. At present, such use is widespread but largely unmapped. It has the potential for radical transformation in the way that patients seek help, gain understanding and find support in every kind of illness, from short and simple episodes to complex and lasting conditions.

Generative AI forces medical practitioners, in the same way as legal practitioners, to re-examine the values that determine their practice. The design of AI for professional use needs to be informed by these values and to allow their development in interaction with clients with a wide and often unpredictable range of needs. 

We need to ensure that triad of client, professional and machine are in best alignment to support mutual understanding and enhancement of every aspect of care, while giving due weight to the relational and pre-reflective elements of such encounters. New networks of observational research are needed to understand how clients and professionals are adapting themselves to this technology and how they might best shape it. Development of AI products and increases in system capacity are taking place with great rapidity, but the understanding of their relational effects in professional practice has hardly begun. This will require new kinds of research methodology and inter-professional dialogue, which Richard looks forward to being part of.

You can contact Dr Lehman on Bluesky at @richardlehman.bsky.social‬. 

Research interests 

Patient networks to map, observe and develop use of generative AI across primary medical care

Teaching interests

Values in professional practice and the effect of artificial intelligence

Selected publications 

Fraile DF, Lewis M, Blease C, Shah R, Rigarre S, Delacroix S, Lehman R: Generative AI and the changing dynamics of clinical consultations BMJ 2025

Blease C, Lewis M, Riggare S, Fraile DF, Lehman R: How generative AI affects patient agency BMJ 2025

Lewis M, Navarro DF, Blease C, Shah R, Rigarre S, Delacroix S, Lehman R: Clinical competencies for using generative AI in patient care BMJ 2025