I have also encountered doctors I did not like but fortunately for me I had a choice where to go. Maybe machine learning should focus on weeding out unpopular practitioners instead.
I have also encountered doctors I did not like but fortunately for me I had a choice where to go. Maybe machine learning should focus on weeding out unpopular practitioners instead.
However, since there are so many applicants, schools have no choice but to cut all below a certain GPA. This has an effect on the pool of applicants and the schools are trying to mitigate that.
In my opinion, technology will help reduce the cognitive load sustained by doctors, driving error rates down and simplifying medical education, allowing the professional to focus more on the relationship with the patient.
Many specialized guidelines contain actual algorithms: objective and subjective signals to look for, their interpretation and evidence-based recommendations based on them. In one instance in my education, this manifested in the form of giant lookup tables. I was expected to memorize them and keep doing it again and again when they inevitably change in a few years. To me it was like trying to memorize a highly dynamic version of the periodic table of elements.
One look at it and I knew a computer could fully implement its logic yet my classmates think I'm crazy for even suggesting it. I say let the computer remember that stuff. It won't replace all of medicine, certainly won't substitute for a proper understanding of the disease... But the act of mapping objective data to evidence-based conduct should really have been abstracted away long ago. The electronic medical records system should bring up these guidelines the moment the physician types the data in. If the doctor types in anthropometric data like BMI and other relevant measurements and they indicate obesity, the system should be able to suggest a proper conduct.
Unless they're used in emergency situations where time is essential, doctors shouldn't have to memorize magic numbers much less entire tables of them. With one less thing to cram, maybe school wouldn't be so stressful, doctors would make less mistakes and would also make more time for actually caring about the patient.
Right now, a really rude doctor will be tolerated within the system because of their technical knowledge, diagnostic skills, surgical skills, etc. But if all that other stuff is performed by machines, and we just have nurses, etc., there to tend to patients, explain things to them, and generally provide a human touch, I'd expect that very rude human employees would no longer be tolerated.
Would it have mattered to you if a machine interpreted the results and a nurse, fully versed in the specialty, had a consultation with you and guided you through the treatment process?
It seems like the bigger issue here is having some warmth of some sort in the situation - which I think is where medicine is really going, at least in the way we experience it. Computers and machines to do the hard diagnosis, with educated humans guiding other humans through. I believe we'll have less unpopular practitioners because we'll be able to spend more time teaching bedside manner and communication skills.
The obvious rebuttal which is common is: "why not have a compassionate human read the machine results/analysis/interpretation/prescription?"
To which I respond, how much are you willing to pay to have someone read to you?