Clinical AI speakers for healthcare conferences

Quick answer: Book a clinical AI speaker when your audience must decide whether an AI tool is safe, useful and fair at the bedside. The best ones still see patients, build or evaluate real tools, and will tell your audience what AI cannot do yet.

Clinicians judge an AI talk the way they judge a consult: is the evidence real, does it fit the workflow, and who answers when it fails? As an emergency physician, I have watched good tools stall because nobody on stage spoke the language of the people using them. The speakers below can. Each brings clinical training and current work in AI, digital health or clinical research.

Who to book for which question

David Rhew, MD

Responsible healthcare AI and clinical workflows. For audiences deciding how AI fits real care delivery.

Dr. Dipu Patel

Clinical reasoning, AI education and innovation leadership. For academic medicine, training programs and educators.

Ranya Habash, MD

Clinical AI, telemedicine and digital health, with an ophthalmology lens. For specialty and digital health audiences.

Erkeda DeRouen, MD

Digital health risk, AI governance and patient experience. For quality, safety and clinical leadership teams.

Victoria Manax Rutson, MD

Oncology, clinical research and drug development. For research, life sciences and cancer care audiences.

What a strong clinical AI session includes

One clinical decision the audience faces, named up front.
Evidence from published studies or real deployments, not vendor claims.
Where the tool fails, and how the team catches it before the patient does.
Who owns the tool after go-live.
One thing attendees can check in their own unit the next week.

Frequently asked questions

Should a clinical AI speaker be a practicing clinician? For clinical audiences, yes when possible. Trust comes faster from someone who knows the workflow from the inside.

Keynote or panel? A keynote when the room needs one clear direction. A panel of a clinician, a governance leader and a patient voice when the tradeoffs matter more. More in Keynote, fireside chat, panel or workshop?

How do I choose between these speakers? Start with the decision your audience faces. The full method is in How to choose a healthcare AI speaker.

Discuss your event

By Harvey Castro, MD, MBA, board-certified emergency physician and founder of Signal & Stage.