Machines replacing MDs????

[Mad Jack]

My point is that it's a meaningless statement. Anyone can push drugs. Our value is what, how much, when, when to stop, etc.

The thing is, when you've got 65% of those drugs being given out by non-physicians, you've already proven physicians aren't necessary for direct administration of 65% of them. Whether a machine or a CRNA is dishing out that 65% is meaningless, as there should be an anesthesiologist overseeing both, but that low-hanging fruit is going to be the most ripe for robotic replacement, with the tough cases left for direct MD/DO administration.

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[Psai]

The thing is, when you've got 65% of those drugs being given out by non-physicians, you've already proven physicians aren't necessary for direct administration of 65% of them. Whether a machine or a CRNA is dishing out that 65% is meaningless, as there should be an anesthesiologist overseeing both, but that low-hanging fruit is going to be the most ripe for robotic replacement, with the tough cases left for direct MD/DO administration.

Because hospitalists give meds on the floors right? I'd rather have a well trained person giving a drug rather than a machine that requires a nurse to watch over it anyway

 

[Mad Jack]

Because hospitalists give meds on the floors right? I'd rather have a well trained person giving a drug rather than a machine that requires a nurse to watch over it anyway

The thing is, this is happening. I would also prefer a well-trained person administering my drugs, but if machines are going to be administering anesthesia, we need to make sure that CRNAs, not physicians, take the brunt of the transition.

 

[Kaustikos]

The thing is, this is happening. I would also prefer a well-trained person administering my drugs, but if machines are going to be administering anesthesia, we need to make sure that CRNAs, not physicians, take the brunt of the transition.

 

[zeppelinpage4]

I could see these guys doing a fair job.

 

[Portlandia8]

Surgeons will become robot operators sitting at home in their pajamas wearing Hololens with a Da Vinci videogame controller.

 

[Kaustikos]

Surgeons will become robot operators sitting at home in their pajamas wearing Hololens with a Da Vinci videogame controller.

As long as its in 1080p on 60 inch. And no lag. My latency better be low like when I was pwning noobs in counter strike.

 

[Kaustikos]

I could see these guys doing a fair job.

I seriously felt like that robot was very close to a physician. He gave Luke all that advice about not exerting himself in hoth and Luke leaves ama. Robot doesn't care because it was recorded lol

 

[baskintheglow]

All my love for this meme.

 

[baskintheglow]

Less love for my poor wifi causing a double post...

 

[Mad Jack]

I could see these guys doing a fair job.

They certainly seemed like they'd give ortho a run for their money

 

[Mad Jack]

Less love for my poor wifi causing a double post...

It's the update, it's making posts go in slow, or at least it was last night- double posts, double posts everywhere.

 

[NickNaylor]

It's the update, it's making posts go in slow, or at least it was last night- double posts, double posts everywhere.

Glad it wasn't just me. I'm double posting like crazy.

 

[Lucca]

I think we can really look forward to the day robots replace physicians. Every specialty will become a lifestyle specialty when the physician goes back to basically just being a patient educator and someone there to comfort and guide the patient and the hairy things like volume, speed, and diagnosis can be perfectly handled by machines. Medicine would essentially become a totally social profession.

Research, on the other hand, may survive a bit longer until we can teach robots how to be uncertain and make plans based on little information (entirely possible imo).

Clinical medicine would just be a purely service profession which means we could be expected to be paid like Nurses instead of contemporary physicians given the current payment structure. The only real use for the MD would be to conduct research and have the ability to educate patients.


But unless capitalism collapses society will have totally collapsed by that point given that many other jobs would go first and no one in this country would know how to handle the immense amount of unemployment and inequality that will precipitate, inevitably, from such an eventuality.

 

[Mad Jack]

Glad it wasn't just me. I'm double posting like crazy.

Just give it time after your post and it'll eventually show up. Getting impatient and hitting the reply again seems to be what's making all the doubles happen.

 

[zeppelinpage4]

I seriously felt like that robot was very close to a physician. He gave Luke all that advice about not exerting himself in hoth and Luke leaves ama. Robot doesn't care because it was recorded lol

Haha, wish I could find a clip of that scene again.
I like to think it's the same robot that has to give Luke his robot hand later in the movie, the one in Mad Jack's post.

 

[jeffk805dent]

random thought: people hate going to the dentist, I wonder if they would prefer a T-1000 Terminator or me for a 3rd molar removal?

another random thought: Did @Mad Jack get his name from Mad Max?

Imagine that, a movie called Max Jack: Deez Nuts.

 

[jeffk805dent]

worth a watch

 

[zeppelinpage4]

worth a watch

Hahahahaha, that voice, I lost it at the good day sir to Vader. I hadn't seen this skit until now.

 

[jeffk805dent]

Hahahahaha, that voice, I lost it at the good day sir to Vader. I hadn't seen this skit until now.

I lost it at: "What the?! You trying to drown that kid?! What are you injecting there? Is this the bloody Dark Ages?! Why don't you just throw some leeches in there?!"

 

[Kaustikos]

Haha, wish I could find a clip of that scene again.
I like to think it's the same robot that has to give Luke his robot hand later in the movie, the one in Mad Jack's post.

Yup. I'm sure there was a conversation that was deleted from the final release where the doctors like "oh, you again. What was it I said when you left?" As he lifts Lukes handless arm.

worth a watch

I remember that! All I could think was I'd watch that. Make it a show.

 

[zeppelinpage4]

Yup. I'm sure there was a conversation that was deleted from the final release where the doctors like "oh, you again. What was it I said when you left?" As he lifts Lukes handless arm.

I remember that! All I could think was I'd watch that. Make it a show.

Lol, that sounds about right. It looks like all the medical droids are just tired of everyone's ****, no one ever listens to them. Agreed, this really should be a show...Dr.Ball, MD and the medical droid who always gets stuck taking care of Luke, both giving sassy commentary.

 

[SitraAchra]

Anesthesiologist here. Not worried. Having a machine push propofol on a subset of extremely healthy people for outpatient endoscopy procedures does not threaten the myriad other things I handle. Also, even super healthy endoscopy patients can have several issues even in the conditions for which this machine would allegedly be ideal - and its main recourse is simply to stop giving propofol and wake the patient up.

Patients can get bradycardic when their colon is insufflated in addition to any other possible dysrhythmia, they can aspirate even when appropriately NPO, and then cay obstruct (even when normal weight). Also, they can be mouth breathing and not register end-tidal CO2 and be satting 100% the entire procedure, but a machine would likely assume they are apneic and stop the sedation.

So many nuances to a simple colonoscopy occur that I am aware of that a machine is not.

Even if the technology improves, you would still need an anesthesiologist or a foolish GI doc to be in charge of sedation should an emergency occur. Plenty of GI docs do their own sedation as it is, so this seems to be an invention that's solving a non-existent problem.

 

[Redpancreas]

I keep talking to a guy who's convinced that one day machines will make doctors irrelevant. At the grocery mart, I asked him when all cashiers wI'll be replaced by self scans and he said never because of complexity of the task and ensuring people didn't cheat the machines by putting in the wrong code for the cheaper items, etc!

As funny as that is, I do think he has a point and what may happen in the future is that doctors will be reduced to verifiers of the machines flaws while cerebral tasks like problem solving and diagnosis may start slowly being replaced by big data. I think it would be interesting if someone took a position on the extent to which big data could supplement the process of diagnosis.

 

[DoctwoB]

Much more likely in our lifetimes is increased use of computer/robotic assistance rather than true cases of robots replacing MDs. Image processing/recognition algorithms could highlight structures for surgeons intra-operatively and radiologists on images (as they already do with mammograms). They make plenty of mistakes (hence the need for human physicians), but the key is that they make different mistakes then humans so the combined error rate will be lower.

If anything the use of robotics will place a higher premium on MD level knowledge, as the basic mid-level tasks will be replaced by machine assistance. You see it already where the nurses or NPs just read the EKG report and it takes a physician to determine whether that report is right or wrong.

Eventually though, the vast majority of jobs in our society will replaceable by computers and/or robots. The good news is that by the time physician jobs are truly replaceable the vast majority of society will already be unemployed and hopefully society will have figured out a solution. What I wonder is (1) if there will be new niches for human jobs that we inherently have a competitive advantage in over machines and (2) if we do end up with a scenario where the majority of society is unemployable but society as a whole is more productive then ever, then what happens? Do we turn to capitalism + a universal basic income system? Socialism? Who knows.