Artificial intelligence (AI) doesn’t replace human doctors, not yet!
How AI Doctors Change The Healthcare System?
The Primary Goal of Doctors and Patients
For both doctors and patients, the primary goal comes to terms. For patients, the goal of visiting a doctor is to receive an accurate diagnosis and reliable treatment. On top of that, patients do feel good if they have a nice conversation with the doctor. But, if the treatment is not good, I don’t believe the kindest and most compassionate doctors can win the patients’ trust. For doctors, their primary goal and focus is to diagnose the disease and offer the best treatments possible.
“No matter if it is a white cat or a black cat; as long as it can catch mice, it is a good cat.” — Deng Xiaoping
If the AI doctors are really good to deliver what they need the most, I don’t doubt that more and more AI doctors will get involved in the healthcare system 7/24.
Suppose an AI doctor that can deliver the best medical service in the world verse a human doctor, I personally will bet on it.
Less Working Hours and Flexible Locations
Here is my experience of visiting my GP (general practitioner) based in the Netherlands.
On a weekend, my eyes are suffering from Seasonal Allergic Conjunctivitis (SAC). I couldn’t use my eyes properly because they were very itchy. So when I immediately went to the GP office. But I was told that GP didn’t work on Sunday. Above all, I need to an appointment first. Anyway, they cannot provide any immediate help for me by the rule. And I asked them that could I go to the hospital as an emergency case. they told me my case was not urgent. What?! I couldn’t use my eyes, and I was even scared of losing part of my vision ability. So I gave it a try — heading to the local hospital. But again, the nurse told me I was not supposed to come to the hospital. Instead, I should go to my GP, and if the illness got out of control, then it’s my GP’s responsibility to refer me to a specialist in a hospital. Only with the referral letter, could I be treated by a specialist in a hospital. That’s the correct order. Well, I understood the system, but not always feel good about it. By the end, luckily my eyes were saved on the next Monday by my GP. I was pretty sure that I was overreacting a bit, which I often told my own patients. But when it comes to myself, I generally feel very nervous about my health.
Here is what usually a doctor’s appointment looks like:
Suppose I make an appointment, then I have to take a leave on that day, and head to the doctor’s office, wait in the reception room for some time, and finally see the doctor. But very often, I will be told to make another appointment for some tests.. so on and so forth.
As an ex-doctor, I neither enjoy working as a doctor nor visiting a doctor as a patient.
AI is Always at Peak Performance
Human doctors can get sick or tired from work. They cannot guarantee their peak performance all the time.
They are there, but not always there.
AI Can Accesses and Processes More Medical Data
I personally travel a lot. I have lived in several countries in the past. But my medical data is not accessible in different countries. Even not accessible in different hospitals in the same country, I’m afraid>
In order to diagnose a disease, doctors need to know their patients’ present past medical conditions (data), and, very importantly, the updated medical data in the world. Normally, when we talk about a senior doctor vs a junior doctor is mainly based on their working years. For human doctors, we have junior and senior doctors. Patients usually like to be treated by senior doctors who are supposed to have more experience and are more skilled. I can relate to this. Human doctors have different levels, and so do AI doctors. It’s not hard to understand different AI models and the training data determines what level of the AI is.
But what you don’t know is, in order to have a more accurate diagnosis or deliver better treatment, the doctors are supposed to be updated about the medical data globally. That’s why doctors need to perform clinical work as well as literature research work. But, in reality, even the best doctors in the world cannot get familiar with all the medical conditions (data) in the world. They are humans.
But for AI doctors can access and process huge amounts of data. Because they have all the updated data, they can quickly and even provide healthcare advice ahead for you before you feel something goes wrong with your body.
Just from the perspective of the power of accessing and processing data, AI can potentially provide way better diagnoses and treatments than any human doctor.
Why Do People Think AI Cannot Replace Doctors?
AI Cannot Provide Emotional Support?
Let’s see what ChatGPT says.
“Healthcare is a complex field that involves not just the diagnosis and treatment, but also a wide range of social, ethical, and emotional considerations.” — ChatGPT
When people hear something about AI doctors, very often they would argue that maybe AI doctors are better at diagnosing diseases and providing treatments, but there is something AI cannot deliver, which is emotional consideration (support).
A good doctor is not just diagnosing disease and providing treatment but is also very attentive to the emotional conditions of patients. In other words, a good doctor should not just help me solve physical difficulties, but offer emotional support, especially for those patients who are eagerly expecting from their doctors. It’s not hard to understand why people say this is a good doctor who shows compassion and provides emotional comfort, while that doctor is not good because he/she doesn’t have a good attitude, etc.
However,
“.. this criticism fails to notice that emotions, at least according to modern science, are a biochemical phenomenon that is observed in not only homo sapiens but also other animals. So, it’s most likely AI can diagnose emotional conditions just as it diagnoses disease.” — Yuval Noah Harari– How AI Doctors Can Change The Healthcare System
Maybe we underrate the capabilities of AI doctors in dealing with the emotional conditions of patients.
Yuval Noah Harari said: “human doctors rely on external signals such as facial expressions and tone of voice to diagnose emotional conditions. AI not only outperforms humans in analyzing external signals but also the biochemical data coming from within the body.”
As an ex-doctor, who has some first-hand experience in treating patients as well as receiving treatments from other human doctors, I have something to say:
It’s arguably true that most of the time, patients couldn’t get enough emotional consideration, partly because of the limited skill in diagnosing different emotional conditions of various patients. Another factor could be that the doctors won’t bother to provide any emotional consideration which is not a must-to-have requirement for a doctor.
But, Not All Doctors Are Good at With the Diagnosis of Basic Emotional Conditions or Willing to Provide Emotional Considerations.
Sometimes, Patients Only Care Best Treatments
It’s not 100% correct by saying that every patient demands emotional support. I think it depends on many situations including patients’ character and the level of illness they are suffering.
For example, a patient is sent to an emergency room. The most demand for the patient is an efficient and effective treatment, otherwise, he/she will die soon. I don’t think he/she is in the mood of considering whether the doctor is a person with compassion or not. Don’t waste time. You are the best doctor as long as you could save my life.
Another example is a patient suffering from a chronic disease such as diabetes, then he/she might want some emotional support.
So, the level of demand for emotional support varies among patients.
In addition, there are some positions in the hospital that could clearly be handled over to AI — radiologists.
Here is my story:
Many years ago, I did my internship in the radiology department of a big hospital in Shanghai. The radiologists have to analyze the radiology results using their naked eyes. Very often, my supervisor told me that his eyes got very tired from reading the images in a dark room for long hours especially working in a big hospital crowded with patients every single day. And the primary job of a radiologist is to provide reliable reports as quickly as possible. The final decision of diagnosis is not made by them. So very often radiologists don’t communicate with patients (at least in the hospital I worked before), except communicate with each other. Well, that’s the reason that I become isolated after a two-month shift in that department. I missed the light from sunshine and humans. Not a socially enjoyable job, in my opinion. But AI doesn’t mind the isolated working environment and the long-working hours!
AI has already changed the way we interpret imaging like MRI, CT, and X-rays. And it’s proven that AI is equal to or above radiologist performance. Patients also don’t need to seek emotional consideration from radiologists. So why won’t happen that AI will replace radiologists? It’s just not yet!
Overall, my conclusion is that emotional support should not be considered, at least, as a strong argument that AI cannot replace doctors.
My Visions of Future Healthcare System (Could Be Wrong)
Human Doctors Work Together With AI
According to a survey conducted by HealthcareDive, younger adults and people with higher education and incomes were most likely to say they feel comfortable with their provider using AI.
People start to shift their mindset of having AI doctors in real life. For example, we will get the radiology and pathology reports created by AI. Although people think AI can only facilitate the tasks performed by radiologists and pathologists. Well, at least we admit that AI is doing a good job as an assistant. As an ex-doctor, I need to mention that many junior doctors are working as assistants as well. Their work requires an attentive check by the senior doctors. But patients don’t call them students or assistants, but doctors. At least, I was already called Doctor Li even when I was an intern by my teacher and patients. So, we should give credit to AI for their constant and stable performance by calling them AI doctors.
Following the new normal — human doctors work closely with AI, it’s not hard to understand that the tasks of human doctors start to change.
In the near future, human doctors don’t need to worry that we won’t see human doctors anymore, instead, human doctors have changed their tasks. They can dedicate certain tasks to AI like standard tests like radiology, pathology, and biochemical tests. As for doctor’s paperwork, I personally think AI can do a much better job than us. It normally takes one or two hours to finish writing one medical record for a new patient admitted to the hospital (based on my previous experience as a junior doctor). Of course, I will review the results and make some adjustments. So, I pick up a new task — reviewing the results by AI.
In general, human doctors need to learn how to work with AI. I can imagine that junior doctors are required to get familiar with AI to do their job.
AI Doctors Are More Accessible
You cannot bring your doctor wherever you go. Even if you can, you still have to make an appointment first and wait and go to your doctor’s office, unless you have a private doctor. But human private doctor services are not what regular people can afford. The most important reason is the limited medical resources. And an important reason for limited medical resources is that human doctors are limited.
Well, AI doctors can work anywhere anytime. There are no time and location restrictions for AI doctors. Investors are starting to back AI startups to put a doctor on our smartphones. For example, Investors backed an AI startup that puts a doctor on your smartphone with $60 million. Someday, not far away, people can take their doctor on their smartphone anywhere they go. And they can ask for help anytime they need it.
We will witness a revolution of AI in the healthcare system.
Summary
AI is becoming good at many human jobs in the healthcare system. And humans and AI are joining forces for better diagnoses, treatments, and other supportive services. We will see a better healthcare system for all humans.
Visit the Medium story.Visit more articles about AI and Healthcare on our website.