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Talwar et al. Art Int Surg. 2025;5:46-52 Artificial
DOI: 10.20517/ais.2024.81
Intelligence Surgery

Perspective Open Access

Natural language processing in plastic surgery
patient consultations

Ankoor Talwar, Chen Shen , Joseph H. Shin

Division of Plastic Surgery, Department of Surgery, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, NH 03766, USA.
Correspondence to: Dr. Ankoor Talwar, Division of Plastic Surgery, Department of Surgery, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical
Center, 1 Medical Center Drive, Lebanon, NH 03766, USA. E-mail: ankoor.a.talwar@hitchcock.org

How to cite this article: Talwar A, Shen C, Shin JH. Natural language processing in plastic surgery patient consultations. Art Int
Surg. 2025;5:46-52. https://dx.doi.org/10.20517/ais.2024.81

Received: 19 Sep 2024 First Decision: 9 Dec 2024 Revised: 21 Dec 2024 Accepted: 25 Dec 2024 Published: 10 Jan 2025

Academic Editor: Andrew Gumbs Copy Editor: Pei-Yun Wang Production Editor: Pei-Yun Wang

Abstract
Natural language processing (NLP) is the study of systems that allow machines to understand, interpret, and
generate human language. With the advent of large language models (LLMs), non-technical industries can also
harness the power of NLP. This includes healthcare, specifically surgical care and plastic surgery. This manuscript
is an introductory review for plastic surgeons to understand the current state and future potential of NLP in patient
consultations. The integration of NLP into plastic surgery patient consultations can transform both documentation
and communication. These applications include information extraction, patient chart summarization, ambient
transcription, coding, enhancing patient understanding, translation, and a patient-facing chatbot. We discuss the
current progress toward building these applications and highlight their challenges. NLP has the potential to
personalize care, enhance patient satisfaction, and improve workflows for plastic surgeons. Altogether, NLP can
radically transform our current model of consultation into one that is more patient-centered.

Keywords: NLP, Large language models, GPT, transcription, coding, translation, literacy, Chatbot

INTRODUCTION
Natural language processing (NLP), a subfield of artificial intelligence (AI), focuses on the systems that
allow machines to understand, interpret, and generate human language - a capability that is particularly
significant. While NLP has been around for decades, it has mostly existed in small, non-generative forms.

© The Author(s) 2025. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, sharing,
adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, for any purpose, even commercially, as
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