In the second episode of Defending Care, Anand Chaturvedi names and defines the Theft of Presence. Beginning with the clinical term "iPatient" — coined by the American Medical Association to describe a patient rendered secondary to their own electronic record — the episode builds its case through three independent research streams.

A University of Southern California eye-gaze study found that physicians looked at patients only 42.6% of visit time when using a passive screen, and patient gaze became "unknown" in 35.6% of visits. Peterson Health Technology Institute data shows that for every one hour of direct patient care, clinicians spend nearly two hours in the EHR; one in five physicians spends 8+ hours per week in the EHR outside working hours.

The BMC Geriatrics exit data is brought back in its specific context: workers with high administrative burden are 24% more likely to leave, and those who leave are disproportionately those who chose care when they had other options. The episode closes by formally naming the Theft of Presence — the systematic extraction of caregiver attention from the people in their care. Not a management failure. A structural outcome.