Doctors are very scared of things like artificial intelligence and automation. You don’t have to search far to find stories and discussions about doctor exchanges. So should we be worried? Are Doctors Dispensable?
Here’s an idea: if what you do as a doctor is easy, maybe you should be nervous. Because…
- Red transaction care can be done by advanced doctors.
- Recognizing visual patterns is ripe for artificial intelligence.
- Repetitive things can be automated in different ways.
- Algorithms and machine learning are getting better at putting together basic clinical stories.
Our greatest opportunity lies in the hard human things that lie in between. The things machines struggle with and can only imitate. Things like nuance, ambiguity, abstraction, and big picture thinking. The human interface between humans and truly advanced interventional instruments will also play a critical role for physicians.
The things that make medicine easy are the things that doctors make dispensable.
What will this generation of PhD students make dispensable in the next 25 years? More importantly, what makes doctors indispensable?
If you like What Makes Doctors Dispensable, you might like our MD Future Archives. Everything about the future of doctors. Photo by Trollinho on Unsplash
