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Reported by ABC News (Australia): an AI scribe used at a urology appointment inserted a false claim that the patient took psychedelic mushrooms into her record; the error reached her GP in a post-operative letter and was corrected only after she complained

A patient who consented to having her first urology appointment transcribed by an artificial-intelligence scribe discovered, after her kidney-stone surgery in March 2026, that the post-operative letter her specialist sent to her GP stated she micro-dosed psychedelic mushrooms and that this could explain earlier bleeding around the kidneys. She says she has never taken mushrooms. She was receiving workers' compensation and feared that any mention of illegal drugs on her medical record could affect her case. After she complained, the urologist sent a letter of apology saying the practice takes documentation accuracy seriously, that she could not determine how the claim came to be included but that it appeared to be an error during the 'dictation or transcription process', that the correspondence had been corrected and that she would review how AI was used in her practice. The doctor did not answer ABC's questions about what changes had been made. Australia's practitioner regulator AHPRA told ABC that clinicians must check all AI-scribe output; the patient says it was clear her doctor had not. The account is a single ABC News report (14 August 2026) based on the patient's interview and the letters she received; the scribe product and the clinic's location are not named.

AI System

AI medical scribe (product not named in the report)

Occurred

Mar 2026

Reported

14 August 2026

Event location

Unknown

Platform

other

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. The patient told ABC that the appointment was transcribed by an AI scribe with her consent and that the false mushroom claim appeared in the resulting post-operative letter; the doctor's apology attributes the claim to an error during the 'dictation or transcription process' without confirming the scribe as the origin. The product is not named. Single ABC report.

AI-to-person relation

  • Made a claim about the person

Core relations are communication, acting on someone’s behalf, and depiction or impersonation. Decision and claim relations are retained as contextual cases.

An institution’s AI use. Settings: Health.

Claim status: Reported

The patient consented to AI transcription of her first urology appointment; after her March 2026 kidney-stone surgery she found that the post-operative letter to her GP stated she micro-dosed mushrooms and that this could explain earlier bleeding around the kidneys, a claim she says is false.

Causal attribution: Patient's account to ABC; the attribution of the false entry to the AI scribe is hers and ABC's framing.

  • News report (supports): 'she was asked whether she consented to having the appointment transcribed by artificial intelligence (AI)'; 'with the AI scribe making up the serious but false claim that'; 'it made up that I take [psychedelic] mushrooms. I have never done mushrooms in my life'; 'only picked up the mistake after her kidney stone surgery in March, when she read the post-operative letter her specialist sent to her GP'; 'micro-dosed mushrooms and that could be the reason for prior bleeding around the kidneys'

Claim status: Reported

She reported distress and feared the entry could affect her workers' compensation case.

Causal attribution: Patient's account.

  • News report (supports): 'I was gobsmacked and in tears'; 'was particularly stressed as she was receiving workers' compensation and felt any mention of illegal drugs on her medical record could impact her case'

Claim status: Reported

After her complaint the urologist apologised in writing, said the cause could not be determined but appeared to be an error in the dictation or transcription process, corrected the correspondence and said she would review her use of AI; she did not answer ABC's questions about changes made.

Causal attribution: Doctor's letter as quoted by ABC; the doctor does not confirm the scribe as the origin.

  • News report (supports): 'the urologist sent a letter apologising'; 'Please be assured that we take the accuracy of our documentation very seriously, and we are truly sorry that this occurred'; 'it appeared to be from an error during the "dictation or transcription process"'; 'The urologist corrected the correspondence and in her letter said she would review how AI was used in her practice'; 'The doctor did not provide any responses to the ABC's questions about what changes, if any, have been made since'

Claim status: Reported

AHPRA told ABC that clinicians must always check all output from an AI scribe for accuracy; the patient said it was clear her doctor had not.

Causal attribution: Regulator comment and patient's view; context for the case.

  • News report (supports): 'AHPRA, said clinicians must always check all output from an AI scribe for accuracy to ensure they meet their professional obligations'; 'said it was clear her doctor did not do this'

What remains unknown

  • The AI scribe product and vendor are not named.
  • The location of the clinic and the patient's residence are not stated.
  • The date of the appointment at which the transcription was made is not stated. The report gives the surgery as 'in March' without a year; 2026 is taken from the 14 August 2026 publication date.
  • Whether the false claim originated in the scribe's output or in a later dictation or editing step is not established; the doctor's letter says the cause could not be determined.
  • What changes the practice made afterwards are not reported.
Source reading, translation and location

News report · en · Source inspected

Read live in English on 2026-09-20 (HTTP 200; saved body 402,866 bytes). Feature by the ABC Specialist Reporting Team based on the patient's interview and the letters she received, plus regulator and peak-body comment.

Event countries: Unknown. Affected-person countries: Unknown. Court countries: Unknown.

No inspected source states where the appointment or the patient is located. The ABC report frames the case within Australian regulation (AHPRA, RACGP, TGA) and quotes Australian bodies, but does not locate the patient or the clinic, so the event and affected-person countries are left unknown rather than inferred from the publisher. No court proceeding.

Reviewed for publication 2026-09-20: Published under the 2026-09-15 charter as an everyday-assistance and health case in which an AI system made a false claim about a person in her medical record, with reported distress and a corrected record. Single ABC News report read in full; claims recorded as reported and attributed to the patient and the doctor's letter. The patient is named in the report but not in this record; the doctor and clinic are unnamed.

What Happened

What happened (patient's account to ABC News). At her first appointment with a urologist the patient was asked whether she consented to the appointment being transcribed by AI and agreed, saying she did not want to be 'that annoying patient'. After her kidney-stone surgery in March 2026 she read the post-operative letter her specialist had sent to her GP. It stated that she micro-dosed mushrooms and that this could be the reason for prior bleeding around the kidneys. She told ABC she was 'gobsmacked and in tears' and had never taken mushrooms. Because she was receiving workers' compensation, she feared a record of illegal drug use could affect her case, and she said the letter showed she was not getting the level of care she hoped for.

Response. After her complaint the urologist wrote an apology: 'Please be assured that we take the accuracy of our documentation very seriously, and we are truly sorry that this occurred.' The doctor said she had not been able to determine how the claim about mushrooms came to be included, but that it appeared to be an error during the 'dictation or transcription process'; she corrected the correspondence and said she would review how AI was used in her practice. She did not respond to ABC's questions about what changes had been made since.

Context in the report. AHPRA said clinicians must always check all AI-scribe output; the RACGP estimated last year that 40 per cent of GPs regularly use scribes; a Digital Rights Watch report cited other scribe errors (wrong breast recorded in a cancer diagnosis; a false epilepsy entry) and inconsistent consent practices; the TGA said no AI scribe has gone through its regulation process because transcription-only tools are exempt. Those items are context, not part of this case.

Limits. Single source. The scribe product, the clinic and the city are not named. The doctor's letter attributes the error to dictation or transcription, so whether the AI scribe or a human step introduced the claim is the doctor's characterisation, not an established fact; the patient's account is that the appointment was AI-transcribed and she had said nothing about mushrooms.

Reported harm

The patient reports distress ('gobsmacked and in tears') and fear for her workers' compensation case after a false illegal-drug claim entered her medical record and was sent to her GP; the record was corrected after her complaint. The false entry is attributed by the patient to the AI scribe and by the doctor to an error in the dictation or transcription process.

Psychological DistressReputational Harm

Outcome

Resolved

Patient complaint to the urologist; written apology; correspondence corrected; the doctor said she would review her use of AI. No regulator complaint, lawsuit or product action is reported. The TGA told ABC it had been reviewing AI scribes for a year and would act on breaches; that review is not specific to this case.

People described

An adult patient (named in the ABC report; not named here) receiving workers' compensation at the time

People reported harmed in this case

1 person

0 AI participants · 1 other person harmed

One patient whose record carried the false claim (ABC report). The clinician used the AI tool, so the patient is counted as another person harmed rather than a participant user. Exact 1.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Reported by ABC News (Australia): an AI scribe used at a urology appointment inserted a false claim that the patient took psychedelic mushrooms into her record; the error reached her GP in a post-operative letter and was corrected only after she complained. NOPE: AI and people. https://nope.net/incidents/2026-abc-ai-medical-scribe-false-drug-use-record

BibTeX

@misc{2026_abc_ai_medical_scribe_false_drug_use_record,
  title = {Reported by ABC News (Australia): an AI scribe used at a urology appointment inserted a false claim that the patient took psychedelic mushrooms into her record; the error reached her GP in a post-operative letter and was corrected only after she complained},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {NOPE: AI and people},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2026-abc-ai-medical-scribe-false-drug-use-record}
}

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