Machines replacing MDs????

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No no, it's just going to replace CRNA's! The machine should still need to be supervised by an MD anesthesiologist, because what happens if the patient has an airway collapse? The machine will just say "error" like the robot guy in EuroTrip.

Say goodbye CRNA's muhuhahah.
 
This stuff isn't ready for prime time yet, but I think ultimately it's just a matter of time before more and more tasks are able to be effectively handled by computers. It's not like doctors are doing anything particularly innovative every day. A core set of principles are being used to respond to diverse situations, which ultimately is something that computers can do if trained sufficiently. They won't be able to do everything so it'll just be a slow process of physicians shifting more of what they do to the things that computers can't do. Ultimately we may need fewer physicians in the future, but there'll still be a need for them, especially to manage these things. I don't think the fear of technology is really warranted here.
 
Narmerguy said:
This stuff isn't ready for prime time yet, but I think ultimately it's just a matter of time before more and more tasks are able to be effectively handled by computers. It's not like doctors are doing anything particularly innovative every day. A core set of principles are being used to respond to diverse situations, which ultimately is something that computers can do if trained sufficiently. They won't be able to do everything so it'll just be a slow process of physicians shifting more of what they do to the things that computers can't do. Ultimately we may need fewer physicians in the future, but there'll still be a need for them, especially to manage these things. I don't think the fear of technology is really warranted here.
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I usually think that computers are efficient in carrying out the usual tasks done by mid-level providers, while physicians serve as the main decision makers (and operate the advanced technology). So, having improved technology can actually strengthen the medical profession in the future and minimize/eradicate mid-level encroachment. It's a win-win for all.
 
Narmerguy said:
This stuff isn't ready for prime time yet, but I think ultimately it's just a matter of time before more and more tasks are able to be effectively handled by computers. It's not like doctors are doing anything particularly innovative every day. A core set of principles are being used to respond to diverse situations, which ultimately is something that computers can do if trained sufficiently. They won't be able to do everything so it'll just be a slow process of physicians shifting more of what they do to the things that computers can't do. Ultimately we may need fewer physicians in the future, but there'll still be a need for them, especially to manage these things. I don't think the fear of technology is really warranted here.
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Well, it's not like the medical profession is unique in this regard. If doctors are replaced by machines, so are tons of other professions... I can't imagine we could conceivably think up something even remotely productive for everyone to do then. Maybe we're just a generation or two away from not needing a large workforce?
 
One day maybe. But change is slow in medicine. I've been trying to get our clinic to try out automated kiosks for patients to use to register rather than waiting in long lines at the registration desk for about 10 years now, and still, nothing. Or having have the option of paying their co-pay for the visit online the day before, checking off the list of medications they are on while they are still at home and have the medication bottles in front of them instead of sitting with the medical assistant and spending valuable exam room time and paid medical assisant time. We just started to have patients fill out online forms that can be transferred electronically into the EMR.

Change is slow in medicine.
 
When I see the crappy diagnoses an automatic ECG machine can deliver, I don't feel threatened.
 
Why can't human and machines live together? Iron docs can be pretty cool.
 
JB0123 said:
Why can't human and machines live together? Iron docs can be pretty cool.
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It's the same way nobody wants JB here in US, besides his fan girls.

Anyway, machines can replace a lot of jobs, but not medicine in the next century.
 
I've seen a lot of posts like this one and in my opinion, machines will never replace doctors. The scope of practice and skills of a doctor include a lot more than a few procedures. Are they going to have machines that can talk to a family after their loved one has passed away? What about all of the different situations a doctor is trained for? Everything isn't black and white in the field- these "machines" won't have the capability to adequately assess a patient moment by moment... in my opinion the talk of these machines sounds, and feels about as though they would be as useful as tele-health nursing; sure it can provide patients with a variety of information but what happens when the problem is complex and past the basic algorithms? Patients will be forced to visit an actual physician in person for proper examination etc. Just my two cents, would love to see some replies and comments- as a pre med who is looking to someday become a physician I can't help but tell myself machines replacing doctors will NEVER happen.
 
I can see anesthesia equipment being more advanced. Detecting increasing alveolar-arterial gradient, manipulation of endocrine function, or maybe enhanced congnitive eroticism during anesthesia-induced sleep???? 😉

And the companies will be sued- way deeper pockets naturally.
 
I don't understand why people even worry about this day.

If a machine can replace a doctor, I'm pretty sure 99.9 % of jobs as we know them will become obsolete by that time and either new ones will be created or the social structure of society will substantially change. Things will be so different by that time period that it would be incomprehensible today.

NBA players don't worry about robots replacing them, yet I'm pretty sure that is about 10000x more likely than docs.
 
To be fair, once everything is fine-tuned machines will be much better than doctors. They just have much greater memory, processing speed, and precision. A group just needs to sit and code everything there is to a specialty into algorithm format.

I for one welcome our new robot overlords.
 
I can easily see how an anesthesia machine could provide superior precision while all is well, and even superior detection of small changes with the potential to become problematic. But the article failed to mention what happens when patients have an atypical response or things start to go very wrong. In short - the machines could be used to augment or leverage anesthesiologists, but certainly not to replace them. Replacing mid-levels in the OR? Yeah - potentially.
 
WhendoIstartfirstaid? said:
To be fair, once everything is fine-tuned machines will be much better than doctors. They just have much greater memory, processing speed, and precision. A group just needs to sit and code everything there is to a specialty into algorithm format.

I for one welcome our new robot overlords.
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By that time, the robots will be writing the code too. Computer science and engineering will be long gone.
 
NickNaylor said:
All it takes for me to not be concerned about machines taking the place of physicians is to look at an automated report of an EKG. It might happen one day, but not for a while.
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That and patients lying.
 
The end of modern civilization is more likely than computers that can perform tasks so complex that they can replace the most cognitively challenging professions. That would create a hell of a lot of bored, out of work people who don't feel that they are receiving what is due to them from society. I'm sure you can use your imagination.
 
FiveOClock said:
The end of modern civilization is more likely than computers that can perform tasks so complex that they can replace the most cognitively challenging professions. That would create a hell of a lot of bored, out of work people who don't feel that they are receiving what is due to them from society. I'm sure you can use your imagination.
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Mad Max: Fury Road!!!!
 
For me, the interesting thing about this article is that the machine is using propofol.

Propofol is such a contentious drug in many hospitals. Lots of places restrict where/when it can be used (whereas fentanyl/versed combinations can be given without much issue). That the machine is using propofol is, for me, another argument as to why the use of this drug in general should be a non-issue in most hospitals.
 
I agree with everyone here to an extent, but what professions will be first to go? I think we can all agree that a surgeon will be around for a lot longer than an anesthesiologist. I don't think in the next 10 years any profession has much to fear. In 30 though...that's one reason I'm unsure if I want to go into anesthesiology. I think that while it can't completely replace anesthesiologists, they could reduce the # that are needed dramatically. If you reduce the # of anesthesiologists by a factor of 2 that's equivalent to all anesthesiologists being replaced for ~50% of anesthesiologists...Again, not right now, but in 10 years I think anesthesiology will be facing some pressure, and in 20 you might see a pretty mediocre job market (if residency slots don't decrease).

EDIT: another huge concern is that I think in the next 20 years we will see much higher unemployment. Increasingly we buy our plane tickets online, we self-checkout, we order things from amazon instead of mom and pop. None of these things are bad per-say, but they mean the average high school graduate is in for a VERY rough ride.
 
Doctor Bob said:
For me, the interesting thing about this article is that the machine is using propofol.

Propofol is such a contentious drug in many hospitals. Lots of places restrict where/when it can be used (whereas fentanyl/versed combinations can be given without much issue). That the machine is using propofol is, for me, another argument as to why the use of this drug in general should be a non-issue in most hospitals.
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GIs love it, and patients don't care as long as they don't have to pay for the anesthesiologist/CRNA/robot to oversee it.
 
resiroth said:
I agree with everyone here to an extent, but what professions will be first to go? I think we can all agree that a surgeon will be around for a lot longer than an anesthesiologist. I don't think in the next 10 years any profession has much to fear. In 30 though...that's one reason I'm unsure if I want to go into anesthesiology. I think that while it can't completely replace anesthesiologists, they could reduce the # that are needed dramatically. If you reduce the # of anesthesiologists by a factor of 2 that's equivalent to all anesthesiologists being replaced for ~50% of anesthesiologists...Again, not right now, but in 10 years I think anesthesiology will be facing some pressure, and in 20 you might see a pretty mediocre job market (if residency slots don't decrease).

EDIT: another huge concern is that I think in the next 20 years we will see much higher unemployment. Increasingly we buy our plane tickets online, we self-checkout, we order things from amazon instead of mom and pop. None of these things are bad per-say, but they mean the average high school graduate is in for a VERY rough ride.
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No, it means the average high school graduate is employed doing something else. Particular types of jobs don't last indefinitely, and new types of jobs are created to replace them.
 
medicine IS NOT like other fields, its not IT that machines can just write out codes and replace a person. machine can only be assistants of physician, machines will help them make decisions fast and work fast, but replacing? NOPE!

machines may replace mid levels and pharmacists though. 😛
 
Mad Jack said:
Machines may be able to do a job, but that doesn't mean that they're the best at it, or even perform to a satisfactory level to replace their human competition.

For a perfect example, look no further than vibrators.
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That statement couldn't have written any better by anyone else, Mad Jack. :smuggrin:
 
TooMuchResearch said:
No, it means the average high school graduate is employed doing something else. Particular types of jobs don't last indefinitely, and new types of jobs are created to replace them.
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this isn't something that has ever happened before. Particularly pertinent is 3 minutes 30 seconds. Think about what new type of job has been created in the last 30 years? Computer programmers and engineers! Right, and what type of jobs are being replaced? cab and truck drivers, pilots, cashiers, manual labor, fast food workers, baristas. Not exactly the type of person that can seamlessly transition into computer programming.

The funny thing is that if we paid people a real wage (instead of subsidizing mcdonalds et al.) I'm positive that easily 20-30% of the fast food workforce would be replaced within a year. Plenty of things are feasibly automated, the issue is price...and like the next iphone the price keeps dropping and automation keeps getting better.

I went into a safeway today and they had 2 checkout lines, down from 10 in my youth. It's already happening. Maybe that's why despite increasing numbers of college educated people median income is actually down in the US from 10 years ago?
 
resiroth said:
this isn't something that has ever happened before. Particularly pertinent is 3 minutes 30 seconds. Think about what new type of job has been created in the last 30 years? Computer programmers and engineers! Right, and what type of jobs are being replaced? cab and truck drivers, pilots, cashiers, manual labor, fast food workers, baristas. Not exactly the type of person that can seamlessly transition into computer programming.

The funny thing is that if we paid people a real wage (instead of subsidizing mcdonalds et al.) I'm positive that easily 20-30% of the fast food workforce would be replaced within a year. Plenty of things are feasibly automated, the issue is price...and like the next iphone the price keeps dropping and automation keeps getting better.

I went into a safeway today and they had 2 checkout lines, down from 10 in my youth. It's already happening. Maybe that's why despite increasing numbers of college educated people median income is actually down in the US from 10 years ago?
Click to expand...



This will be a slow shift (there just won't be millions of machines ready to take over from day 1) so hopefully we switch to a different sort of economy or else we will have robots producing stuff no one can buy. For most of us, by the time automation can replace most other jobs out there and start threatening doctors, it won't really matter since most of our patients will be out of a job and have no way to pay for medical services. Doctors won't be the first jobs to be eliminated. There are millions of other low skilled/labor jobs that can be easily replaced by automation and haven't yet.
 
Kaustikos said:
I mean, how difficult would it be to lie to a computer to get narcotics?
Are you in pain? Yes?
Severity? 10/10?
Sounds serious. Here is some dilaudid.
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I CANT FOCUS PLS GIVE ADDERALL
 
darklabel said:
This will be a slow shift (there just won't be millions of machines ready to take over from day 1) so hopefully we switch to a different sort of economy or else we will have robots producing stuff no one can buy. For most of us, by the time automation can replace most other jobs out there and start threatening doctors, it won't really matter since most of our patients will be out of a job and have no way to pay for medical services. Doctors won't be the first jobs to be eliminated. There are millions of other low skilled/labor jobs that can be easily replaced by automation and haven't yet.
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Oh absolutely. I think the next 20 years will be absolutely terrible for people with a high school education (or people that went to college and didn't really benefit from it).

I think anesthesiology is the MOST vulnerable to this though. Do you have an idea of a type of doctor that is more vulnerable? I think it would go anesthesiology ~5-10 years before path/diagnostic radiology. I think demand for general practitioners will go down substantially but due to the humanistic aspect it probably won't ever go away completely (maybe 1/2 to 1/3 current). Surgery may honestly never be automated, potentially because it's too complicated to do (things going wrong all the time etc.).

When I say go away I mean like drastic glut of anesthesiologists/path/diagnostic rads. There still would be jobs, but the demand would be lower since productivity would be substantially higher.

All this being said: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/240076 apparently in those cushy office jobs people actually work only half the time. So we may be headed to a 20 hour work week...as long as you still spend 20 additional hours browsing reddit at work 😛.
 
I could see pharmacists being largely replaced by computer algorithms in the hospital setting long before MDs. Surprised they haven't been already tbh.
 
resiroth said:
this isn't something that has ever happened before. Particularly pertinent is 3 minutes 30 seconds. Think about what new type of job has been created in the last 30 years? Computer programmers and engineers! Right, and what type of jobs are being replaced? cab and truck drivers, pilots, cashiers, manual labor, fast food workers, baristas. Not exactly the type of person that can seamlessly transition into computer programming.

The funny thing is that if we paid people a real wage (instead of subsidizing mcdonalds et al.) I'm positive that easily 20-30% of the fast food workforce would be replaced within a year. Plenty of things are feasibly automated, the issue is price...and like the next iphone the price keeps dropping and automation keeps getting better.

I went into a safeway today and they had 2 checkout lines, down from 10 in my youth. It's already happening. Maybe that's why despite increasing numbers of college educated people median income is actually down in the US from 10 years ago?
Click to expand...


The average "life expectancy" for particular lines of work isn't that long.

And we seem to be roughly as employed now as 45 years ago:
http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet
 
resiroth said:
Oh absolutely. I think the next 20 years will be absolutely terrible for people with a high school education (or people that went to college and didn't really benefit from it).

I think anesthesiology is the MOST vulnerable to this though. Do you have an idea of a type of doctor that is more vulnerable? I think it would go anesthesiology ~5-10 years before path/diagnostic radiology. I think demand for general practitioners will go down substantially but due to the humanistic aspect it probably won't ever go away completely (maybe 1/2 to 1/3 current). Surgery may honestly never be automated, potentially because it's too complicated to do (things going wrong all the time etc.).

When I say go away I mean like drastic glut of anesthesiologists/path/diagnostic rads. There still would be jobs, but the demand would be lower since productivity would be substantially higher.

All this being said: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/240076 apparently in those cushy office jobs people actually work only half the time. So we may be headed to a 20 hour work week...as long as you still spend 20 additional hours browsing reddit at work 😛.
Click to expand...
It'll be far more likely that these machines replace CRNAs than anesthesiologists, as they probably aren't going to be able to handle many of the potential issues that come up during major surgery. CRNAs give 80% of the anesthetics in the country, most of which are for bread and butter cases, so there's a lot of room for replacement before things hit anesthesiologists doing cardiac, peds, etc.
 
resiroth said:
this isn't something that has ever happened before. Particularly pertinent is 3 minutes 30 seconds. Think about what new type of job has been created in the last 30 years? Computer programmers and engineers! Right, and what type of jobs are being replaced? cab and truck drivers, pilots, cashiers, manual labor, fast food workers, baristas. Not exactly the type of person that can seamlessly transition into computer programming.

The funny thing is that if we paid people a real wage (instead of subsidizing mcdonalds et al.) I'm positive that easily 20-30% of the fast food workforce would be replaced within a year. Plenty of things are feasibly automated, the issue is price...and like the next iphone the price keeps dropping and automation keeps getting better.

I went into a safeway today and they had 2 checkout lines, down from 10 in my youth. It's already happening. Maybe that's why despite increasing numbers of college educated people median income is actually down in the US from 10 years ago?
Click to expand...


lol wut. the real reason fast food workers get paid minimum wage is because they bring minimum value to the table.
 
PL198 said:
lol wut. the real reason fast food workers get paid minimum wage is because they bring minimum value to the table.
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He said "a real wage." That want implying they deserve more money, or that they are qualified to earn said real wage, but merely that what they are paid hardly qualifies as a livable wage, which is true.
 
Mad Jack said:
It'll be far more likely that these machines replace CRNAs than anesthesiologists, as they probably aren't going to be able to handle many of the potential issues that come up during major surgery. CRNAs give 80% of the anesthetics in the country, most of which are for bread and butter cases, so there's a lot of room for replacement before things hit anesthesiologists doing cardiac, peds, etc.
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Crnas give 80% of the anesthetics? Since when? And what does that even mean? Floor nurses give 99% of the medications
 
Psai said:
Crnas give 80% of the anesthetics? Since when? And what does that even mean? Floor nurses give 99% of the medications
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Sorry, I meant 65%. They administer 80% of anesthetics in rural environments. Just google it, it's based on the CMS definition of anesthetics billed.
 
Mad Jack said:
Sorry, I meant 65%. They administer 80% of anesthetics in rural environments. Just google it, it's based on the CMS definition of anesthetics billed.
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My point is that it's a meaningless statement. Anyone can push drugs. Our value is what, how much, when, when to stop, etc.
 
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