Will AI Take Over Doctors Jobs?

Sina Bari MD
3 min readMay 9, 2023

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Medical professionals need to be ready to work alongside AI. Rather than replacing physicians, they should serve as a complement and help fill in the blind spots that doctors sometimes have.

For example, a study showed that radiologists who incorporated AI guidance into their evaluations of hip fractures performed better than those who did not.

Humans have emotions and a deep understanding of the world around them. Writers use their feelings and imagination to produce content for plays, movies, blogs, books and songs. In the same way, medical professionals have to be able to handle the complex emotions of their patients. This is why many doctors are skeptical about the idea of AI replacing them.

For instance, a doctor may get angry with a patient for his or her drug addiction or ill-health choices. Moreover, they have to be able to empathize with patients who are suffering from serious illnesses. It’s not possible for robots to understand these complicated emotions.

Fortunately, there are some areas of medicine where AI can be useful. For example, some studies show that AI-aided radiologists are more accurate in detecting breast cancer than radiologists who work unassisted. Also, AI software can pick up on nuances in health records that physicians miss. This makes it easier to identify certain diseases and diagnose them quickly.

Artificial intelligence is revolutionising the healthcare industry. It can be used for various tasks such as detecting diseases at an early stage and improving surgery outcomes. It can also help solve problems like an uneven doctor-to-patient ratio and lack of healthcare access in rural areas.

However, it is important for surgeons to keep in mind that AI should be used as a complementary tool rather than a replacement for humans. Studies show that human and AI collaboration yields better results than either technology working alone. In one study, radiologists who were assisted by AI performed more accurately than those without it.

Physicians should also be mindful of the medico-legal implications of AI use. They should ensure that the developers and vendors of AI-based systems are held liable for the decisions they make. This is especially important as the medical field increasingly becomes digitized. A recent case involving an AI system that was alleged to have contributed to the death of a patient highlights this point.

A new study shows that AI robots can diagnose diseases as well as healthcare professionals. This would save doctors time and money by eliminating some routine tasks like taking blood samples. It will also help to reduce waiting times and improve hospital and healthcare system efficiency.

In the future, AI will be able to use medical images and analyze patient data from wearable and non-wearable sensors and biosensors. This information will be used to make recommendations for diagnosis and treatment. It will also be able to detect trends in disease patterns that could help with prevention and diagnosis.

A recent Pew Research Center study found that Americans are not comfortable with the idea of their health care provider using artificial intelligence to diagnose them. Six-in-ten say they would be uncomfortable with this, though majorities of those who have heard a lot about AI are more likely to be comfortable with it.

Many Americans expect AI to make healthcare more affordable, and many believe it will reduce the number of medical errors that doctors make. In one study, deep learning models could identify cancerous tumors on ultrasound images as accurately as a trained radiologist.

But there are limits to what AI can do. Only a flesh-and-blood clinician can hold a patient’s hand while breaking life-changing diagnosis news, entertain a child during a blood draw, or genuinely care about their patients. AI is great at interpreting large amounts of information, but it can’t comprehend empathy.

There are also limits to what AI can do when it comes to addressing health disparities. For example, an AI program may recommend a high-cost treatment facility for a low-income client based on the fact that it has been successfully treated by other clients of similar socioeconomic backgrounds. This could lead to harmful treatments for the client. For this reason, it’s important for human doctors and AI to work together.

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Sina Bari MD
Sina Bari MD

Written by Sina Bari MD

Leading medical device and information technology developer Sina Bari MD is a Stanford-trained plastic and reconstructive surgeon.

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