Imagine this: You step inside a clinic. But instead of being greeted by your family doctor, you see a shiny metallic robot with a cold, shiny stethoscope wrapped around its neck.
Sound too sci-fi?
With AI starting to make its presence felt in areas like business, education, entertainment, manufacturing, and law, people are starting to wonder, “Would AI make doctors a thing of the past?”
We will explore that question in this post.
What can AI do
AI has come a long way from simply digitizing medical files and improving record-keeping efficiency and accuracy. It has insinuated itself into almost every facet of health care. Here are some areas where AI has done marvelously:
#1 Detection and Diagnosis—AI models can catch a potential disease long before a doctor can. At the Mayo Clinic, for example, AI helps doctors diagnose heart failures and “atrial fibrillation” years before they actually develop. Artificial intelligence can catch red flags that are too subtle even for the trained eye to see.
An ECG test that would be considered “normal” by doctors can be flagged by AI for a possible complication. In a 2022 study, AI identified 1,000 patients (out of 600,000) for possible silent atrial fibrillation. After just a month of monitoring, researchers then recognized that these same patients had a 5 times the risk of developing the condition.
#2 Medical Imaging—AI technology can add insane precision and accuracy to medical imaging, assisting doctors with patient diagnosis. Through increased sensitivity, detection, and characterization features, AI can make images more insightful for the medical practitioner.
AI is not just better than the human eye in “reading” X-rays, CT scans, MRIs, etc., spotting patterns and subtle distinctions that can have significant implications, today’s AI technology is also much better at generating the images itself.
#3 Drug Discovery—AI is used to create more effective medicines. Alongside increased efficacy, the speed with which these compounds and chemicals are crafted has also increased.
With today’s technology, large amounts of data and tests can be conducted, rapidly pointing to promising drug candidates.
#4 Personalized Medicines—With AI’s help, not only are medicines more effective, but they can also be tailor-fitted to a specific patient, taking into consideration the individual’s genetics and medical history. So what you have are medicines that are maximally effective for the individual, leading to a higher quality of healthcare for everyone.
#5 Remote Patient Monitoring—With AI, doctors can regularly be apprised of their patient’s condition. With health tracking devices, for example, real-time monitoring of vital functions is made possible. Frail and sick patients don’t need to wait for hours in a cold clinic to see their doc.
#6 Robot-assisted Surgery—With AI making significant leaps in computer vision, surgical operations have become more precise. And by working with AI, invasive medical procedures have resulted in lesser complications and better outcomes.
#7 Virtual Health Assistants—This would be a chatbot available for consultation and questions 24/7, providing medical guidance, advice, and support for both patient and family.
But at the end of the day, with the wonder that is AI and all the possible improvements and innovations in the pipeline, will these force doctors to shed their white coats?
Will AI Replace Doctors?
That would be very unlikely. AI completely phasing out doctors would require a drastic change in our insights and expectations as a society.
Here are 3 reasons why doctors are not threatened by AI:
#1 Doctors and tech have always grown together.
The field of “Health & Medicine” is one of those areas that has proven to be very porous to technical advances and technological developments. Any innovation or insight is quickly tested and embedded into our models of healing. That seems to be the case because if it’s a matter of life or death, any small win, any small advances are quickly employed for the cause.
But, despite the slew of technological advances of the last half century, of new machines extending life, new medicines with potent powers of healing, and novel models for healthcare, none of it has diminished the need for doctors.
Wave after wave of innovations has come and gone, but these have never deterred our society from wanting doctors to serve the frail and sick.
And we need them now more than ever!
In America, the number of doctors is growing. In 2020, it has 1 million licensed physicians. That is already 20% higher than what it had in 2010.
But the problem is that number is nowhere close enough. It’s been projected that by 2033, America will be short 50,000-140,000 doctors. (The World Health Organization estimates that as for the rest of the world, especially in low income countries, there would be a 10 million shortage of health workers by 2030.)
While the overall number of doctors is increasing, there are still shortages all over.
For all the advances in tech, people have been clamoring for more doctors (per thousand). In history, tech has never dampened the need for doctors, nurses, and other medical workers.
AI, miraculous though its powers may be, is set only to increase the need for physicians.
#2 AI can’t replace clinical judgment, empathy, and the human touch.
AI can’t out-human a human being—especially in the field of healthcare where our humanity and mortality are front and center.
AI can handle big data, and process it with insane accuracy and precision. It can even “see” things that no human eye can see. But when it comes to dealing with patients, when it comes to commiserating with families, when it comes to giving assurances or comfort, there’s nothing like a trusted physician that your family has been going to for years.
AI can be the “brain,” but the “heart” will always be human.
Trust is the currency in these kinds of situations and we give it more readily to professionals who we know understand what we’re going through or as similarly frail and mortal.
With possibly life-altering decisions on the line, the fact that AI is insanely fast, cold, and calculating may actually backfire.
Imagine coming in for a check-up because you have pain in your back. AI goes on to do his thing, like clockwork, like magic. After 30 seconds of whirring sounds, it says, “We need to take out your kidney…”
Would you do it?
Probably not.
Because there’s a process to these things.
Healthcare is a very human process—flawed and slow it oftentimes may be.
#3 Life has ethical, legal, and regulatory components.
Medical decisions have legal implications, so the medical field holds doctors to the highest standards of accountability and responsibility.
Because we are dealing with human lives here, ethics and morality come into the picture.
In the field of medicine, mistakes and errors will eventually be made. Yes, even with the most advanced AI. It’s a tragedy every time a mistake is made.
So what happens when an error leading to the loss or damage of human life is proven to be caused by artificial intelligence working on a set of algorithms?
Who will answer for the mistake?
Doctors get sued for medical malpractice, misdiagnosis, surgical errors, failure to secure informed consent, etc. This is to protect patients and remind physicians of the consequences of their decisions. AI will not “feel” the gravity of those consequences.
Taking doctors from the driver's seat, only to be replaced by AI, could bring a torrent of ethical, legal, and moral issues. Unless we’re able to make some pretty drastic innovations to our legal system and our understanding of ourselves, humans will always be given the main task of taking care of another human being (superbly assisted, of course, by cutting-edge technology).
For these reasons, I believe, doctors will always be around. They will be using all manner of tools and implements, but they will always be around.
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