Gone are the days of the doctor down the street who come with his doctor bag, who takes care of everything from fainting spells to tonsil extraction. (Sadly, gone also are the payments in chicken and vegetables). Now when you visit the family doctor, he would mumble off in his foreign accent about some study with a ridiculously corny name, with lots of jargon mixed in, and tries to convince you that the stuff you read online was wrong.
I always thought the concept of evidence based medicine to be interesting. It certainly makes sense, given that what we doctors brains thinks may not actually work in reality, and we instead rely on research, which is objective data, to tell us what to do. Then the question arises, what exactly is the point of having the phycision? Sure there things such as procedures and surgeries, which despite what other healthcare provider says, I think you need some one with as much training as possible to carry out, since anatomy does differ from one person to another, and delicate operations on humans.
But what about your good old family doc who tells you to go get that colonoacopy done every year and basically tries to force the flu shot on you? This is evidence based medicine, and certainly, the computer would certainly remember better than I to pester you about these things (persistence, sometimes, is a virtue). And research have shown that really, doctors can't even agree amongst themselves about how to conduct a physical exam, let alone making a diagnosis on physical exams findings. And really, diagnosis is just pattern recognition, which the computer will certainly be more adequate than us. In fact, the jeopardy winning computer, "Watson" by IBM, is now being fed the same stuff that we take 4 years of medical school and a quater million in debt to learn, so that it can make diagnosis (with real logic!) when presented with a patient. And I am sure 'Watson' or his cousins would be much better at following evidence based medicine than I. I estimate my memory storage to be about 4 gigabytes as compared to Watsons's 500 gigabytes. And Watson's brain can be easily updated, whereas my feeble brain will have to chug along for another 40 years, deteriorating in the meantime.
Of course, I think Watson still has longs ways to go before replacing your good old family doc, especially since there just isn't enough evidence for evidence based practice to cover every aspect of medicine, and we still rely on the instincts of the physician to make most decisions. But what if we can slowly let Watson take over parts of our time , and then to dedicate all the physician resources we save with Robo docs towards research? It certainly would help research in healthcare advance much further than its current trend.
But there are those who say, despite all the things that Robo docs could do, they certainly can't imitate the patient-doctor relationship. But wait, is that really true? Paul Ekman's research on microexpressions and other researches along the same lines would allow artificial intelligence to recognize human expressions. And if we can figure out the logarithm, they can even return the appropriate emotion. While Watson may not be able to do psychiatric counseling, Watson can certainly show you a sad face when you complain about that colonoscopy. Hmm, should have went into psychiatry after all.
While there is definitely more eminent issues to worry about in the future of physicians, I do wonder about the utilities of computer and artificial intelligence. It is interesting to think that the first AI is going online at a military base, while doctors are still struggling with massive paper charts, which you certainly can't do a search function in. I envision a future where robo docs could take the history, do a full body scan (with their high tech beams of course), generate a differential, and suggest a plan of action. You would only need one doctor to oversee the results, and they don't even have to chart! You could be seen whenever, and there would no longer be lines in the waiting room. Your appointment would always be on time, and your robo doctor can even calculate your personal risks of a procedure within seconds. There would be objective values weighing the risks and benefits, and the robo doc would be able to add every bit of information about you, no matter how remote, into the equation. And not just the regular doctor visits, but even surgeons would be able to save time from having to go round on their patients, and instead dedicate their time to operating.
Hopefully, by the time that Watson start to see my patients, I would be long retired with my bakery, or else, I would really have to uptake psychiatry.
I always thought the concept of evidence based medicine to be interesting. It certainly makes sense, given that what we doctors brains thinks may not actually work in reality, and we instead rely on research, which is objective data, to tell us what to do. Then the question arises, what exactly is the point of having the phycision? Sure there things such as procedures and surgeries, which despite what other healthcare provider says, I think you need some one with as much training as possible to carry out, since anatomy does differ from one person to another, and delicate operations on humans.
But what about your good old family doc who tells you to go get that colonoacopy done every year and basically tries to force the flu shot on you? This is evidence based medicine, and certainly, the computer would certainly remember better than I to pester you about these things (persistence, sometimes, is a virtue). And research have shown that really, doctors can't even agree amongst themselves about how to conduct a physical exam, let alone making a diagnosis on physical exams findings. And really, diagnosis is just pattern recognition, which the computer will certainly be more adequate than us. In fact, the jeopardy winning computer, "Watson" by IBM, is now being fed the same stuff that we take 4 years of medical school and a quater million in debt to learn, so that it can make diagnosis (with real logic!) when presented with a patient. And I am sure 'Watson' or his cousins would be much better at following evidence based medicine than I. I estimate my memory storage to be about 4 gigabytes as compared to Watsons's 500 gigabytes. And Watson's brain can be easily updated, whereas my feeble brain will have to chug along for another 40 years, deteriorating in the meantime.
Of course, I think Watson still has longs ways to go before replacing your good old family doc, especially since there just isn't enough evidence for evidence based practice to cover every aspect of medicine, and we still rely on the instincts of the physician to make most decisions. But what if we can slowly let Watson take over parts of our time , and then to dedicate all the physician resources we save with Robo docs towards research? It certainly would help research in healthcare advance much further than its current trend.
But there are those who say, despite all the things that Robo docs could do, they certainly can't imitate the patient-doctor relationship. But wait, is that really true? Paul Ekman's research on microexpressions and other researches along the same lines would allow artificial intelligence to recognize human expressions. And if we can figure out the logarithm, they can even return the appropriate emotion. While Watson may not be able to do psychiatric counseling, Watson can certainly show you a sad face when you complain about that colonoscopy. Hmm, should have went into psychiatry after all.
While there is definitely more eminent issues to worry about in the future of physicians, I do wonder about the utilities of computer and artificial intelligence. It is interesting to think that the first AI is going online at a military base, while doctors are still struggling with massive paper charts, which you certainly can't do a search function in. I envision a future where robo docs could take the history, do a full body scan (with their high tech beams of course), generate a differential, and suggest a plan of action. You would only need one doctor to oversee the results, and they don't even have to chart! You could be seen whenever, and there would no longer be lines in the waiting room. Your appointment would always be on time, and your robo doctor can even calculate your personal risks of a procedure within seconds. There would be objective values weighing the risks and benefits, and the robo doc would be able to add every bit of information about you, no matter how remote, into the equation. And not just the regular doctor visits, but even surgeons would be able to save time from having to go round on their patients, and instead dedicate their time to operating.
Hopefully, by the time that Watson start to see my patients, I would be long retired with my bakery, or else, I would really have to uptake psychiatry.
No comments:
Post a Comment