AI, Cannabis, and Weight Loss: Hot Topics in Internal Medicine, with Christine Laine, MD

Internal medicine continues to sit at the crossroads of clinical complexity and evolving care demands—and the hot topics shaping the field in 2025 reflect that reality. From the rapid expansion of weight loss drug use to the clinical adoption of artificial intelligence and the ongoing debate around medical cannabis, clinicians are being asked to navigate new tools, shifting evidence, and changing patient expectations.

The Friday plenary session “New in Annals of Internal Medicine: Hear it First from the Authors” at last week’s American College of Physicians (ACP) Internal Medicine (IM) Meeting 2025 in New Orleans, Louisiana, aimed to keep clinicians abreast of some of these hot topics. Christine Laine, MD, MPH, Professor of Medicine, Division of Internal Medicine, Sidney Kimmel Medical College, Thomas Jefferson University, moderated the session, which explored switching weight loss therapies effectively, how to responsibly counsel patients on cannabis use amid limited data, and AI’s growing role in real-time clinical decision-making. Laine also serves as Editor-in-Chief of Annals of Internal Medicine and Senior Vice President of ACP.

HCPLive spoke with Laine during the meeting to learn more about these topics and how they represent growing trends in the field of internal medicine.

“The topics this year are great in that they reflect some of the issues that are really on internal medicine physicians’ mind. So, there's an increasing use of cannabis for medical uses… We have another article that is on weight loss drugs and switching from one to another, and weight loss drugs are definitely on the minds of clinicians and patients, so that's a very hot topic. And then I think you can't really go an hour these days without talking about artificial intelligence,” Laine commented on the plenary’s topics.

Laine has no disclosures to report.

REFERENCE

Laine C, Obley A, Billings L, Horowitz-Kugler Z. Friday Plenary: New in Annals of Internal Medicine: Hear it First from the Authors. Presented at: ACP IM Meeting 2025; April 3-5; New Orleans, Louisiana.