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Jim Ryser's avatar

Oh I just hate to go here but can you imagine AI trying to interpret biology just on gender alone in today’s world? Recommending a PAP for a biological male who now identifies as a woman, or checking for testicular ca on a biological female who now identifies as male would cause the CPU to smoke a bit...

In all seriousness though, this reminds me of when EMR’s came out / designed to make things easier and more efficient. We all know how THAT works...not to mention that it can lead to a lot of “mouse click” medicine.

As far as what I think AI will be used for in medicine, follow the “usefulness” to big business healthcare. Which means potential for $. I doubt that a large percentage of PCP’s will think that way given the nature of compassion they have, but big system bean counters will love anything that AI will do to add $ to the coffers. We all get that.

I agree that no AI can do the thing humans - at least this human - need most when seeking care...compassion and understanding at a person’s often most vulnerable time.

I’ve heard of AI doing music (my chosen post retirement passion) and it cannot touch what humans do. So with that I’ll stick with egalitarian human healthcare.

https://open.substack.com/pub/jimryser/p/memories-of-favorite-docs-who-helped?r=15g3mk&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post

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Mary S. LaMoreaux's avatar

I think it will hopefully end up being something like Dr. McCoy had on Star Trek. He had machines that told him what was wrong with a patient just by scanning the patient, but he had to make the diagnosis and interpret the data.

Your examples do show that the interpersonal skills of a doctor are going to be more important in the future. Many doctors I know are going to need to work on this. Instead of the patient asking the nurse what the doctor said after he leaves the room, I think doctors are going to have to take the time to explain better to the patient how the data applies to their particular situation, keeping themselves more important to the patient than AI.

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