- Joined
- Jan 7, 2004
- Messages
- 1,319
- Reaction score
- 29
I would say that most of us would believe that robots may replace us at some point in time in the future - whether it be 100 or 1000 years from now.
This topic stems from the Optometry forum where there are these auto-refracting machines that a company plans on putting up at your local supermarket (that was approved by the Utah board, poor optometrists ) that can refract and print out your eye's Rx for you to get your prescription filled at a Lenscrafters or any other optical place.
Someone said that this will happen to medicine too - to which I disagreed that there is nothing in the technological pipeline which can diagnose (h&p, clinical gestalt, ultrasound, interpret XR and CT scans), intervene (central line, intubate, run a code, deep brachials, reduce, conscious sedate, call consults), and multitask (keep the room moving) all while being clinically relevant to the situation. Atleast not in the pipeline just yet.
All they have come up with are diagnostic machines that ask a patient a series of questions and it pumps out the most probable diagnosis - but even that's flawed and it won't work because no one wants the malpractice liability.
But then it got me into thinking - it will happen someday. Perhaps not in our lifetimes or our children's lifetimes.... but it is inevitable.
Just look at how far we have come in the past 1000 years.
I don't know, not exactly an EM-stimulating topic I brought up here, but just some food for thought.
Maybe my senioritis is hitting me now.
This topic stems from the Optometry forum where there are these auto-refracting machines that a company plans on putting up at your local supermarket (that was approved by the Utah board, poor optometrists ) that can refract and print out your eye's Rx for you to get your prescription filled at a Lenscrafters or any other optical place.
Someone said that this will happen to medicine too - to which I disagreed that there is nothing in the technological pipeline which can diagnose (h&p, clinical gestalt, ultrasound, interpret XR and CT scans), intervene (central line, intubate, run a code, deep brachials, reduce, conscious sedate, call consults), and multitask (keep the room moving) all while being clinically relevant to the situation. Atleast not in the pipeline just yet.
All they have come up with are diagnostic machines that ask a patient a series of questions and it pumps out the most probable diagnosis - but even that's flawed and it won't work because no one wants the malpractice liability.
But then it got me into thinking - it will happen someday. Perhaps not in our lifetimes or our children's lifetimes.... but it is inevitable.
Just look at how far we have come in the past 1000 years.
I don't know, not exactly an EM-stimulating topic I brought up here, but just some food for thought.
Maybe my senioritis is hitting me now.