3 minute read
Future-Proofing Your
Future-Proofing Your Career in Medicine
DCMS Central PA Medicine
Tuesday, July 5, 2022
Name
Credentials
Alyson Rich
Medical Student, MS4
arich1@pennstatehealth.psu.edu
Bio
Alyson Rich is a MS4 at Penn State College of Medicine. She worked in IT during her undergraduate studies at University of Michigan, and is planning to specialize in Neurology.
Headshot
By ALYSON RICH, B.S. University of Michigan MS4 at the Penn State University College of Medicine
Article Information:
Article Title
Future-Proofing Your Career in Medicine
Normally, when we hear the term “future-proofing,” we are talking about buying the latest smartphone or laptop to ensure that we will not be left behind as technology continues to move forward. However, this same concept of future-proofing can also be applied to selecting a medical specialty. Technology and medicine have always been intertwined, with advancements in one often inspiring a synergistic advancement in the other. The largest leap forward was in the 1960s-1980s when health systems began using electronic medical records (EMRs) instead of paper records. The 1970s also saw the development of the computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners, which are now considered essential for diagnosing many diseases. Now, artificial intelligence (AI) is on the horizon.
Currently, our coding abilities are only to the level where we could design a program to perform certain functions if they are given specific inputs. For example, if a patient’s blood pressure is below a set point, provide “X” dosage of “Y” medication. While this may sound sufficient, nothing in the real world is ever that simple. Did the program consider that the patient just woke up or that their blood pressure is usually low or that they just had abdominal surgery and could be bleeding internally? Unless specifically programmed to consider these options, then the robot did not. But the human doctor would because that is how we are trained.
While the development of AI is exciting, we are all wondering what the integration of AI into medicine will mean for those working in healthcare. It can be safely assumed that just as the integration of EMRs, CTs, and MRIs radically changed medicine, the use of AI will also have a substantial impact on the field. Some healthcare workers fear that as AI technology improves, certain
Article Topic
Discusses how emerging technologies will impact the healthcare field, and that medical students should consider these impacts when selecting a specialty. medical specialties could even become obsolete. If a robot could 1 spot a brain tumor or a cancerous cell, why would you pay for a neuroradiologist or pathologist? Furthermore, if an AI could monitor a patient’s vital signs and has a robust enough code to “know” what medications to administer in different circumstances, why would you pay for an anesthesiologist? The short answer to those questions: experience and empathy. In the future, we may see AI progress to the level of being able to make decisions rather than follow explicit code. However, the diagnosis is often not clear. Or, frustratingly, the patient could have multiple underlying medical problems and the treatments could conflict. At that point, when it becomes necessary to rely on clinical judgment fostered with experience, a physician has the upper hand on AI. Then there are the hardest conversations of all – when the prognosis is poor and it is necessary to prepare the patient and their families for the end. In learning how to care for patients, we are taught to approach them with the same care you would want shown to your loved ones if they were in the same position. This is another situation in which an AI would fall short. How could it approach the painful conversation of allowing someone to pass with as much dignity as possible without truly living, and thus lacking the intimate understanding of death? Given these examples, it should be clear that replacement of our human workforce with AI in healthcare will not occur. However, medical students need to consider the near-certainty of technological advancements significantly altering the landscape of medicine. Specifically, how and the extent to which different specialties will be impacted should be considered as we prepare to join the healthcare field.
