I have been in private medical practice for 30 years, and I have seen enormous changes in the art and caring for human beings in our health care system. That change is continuing at a far greater rate than I could have ever expected, and in medicine, it impacts both the patient and physician. Whether it’s from insurance involvement in individual patient care decisions or government taking part in the free market health system, outside of these business and political influences, as a society we must be ready for the coming of age of computers and artificial intelligence.
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In medicine specifically, artificial intelligence is a branch of computer science that has the capacity to analyze complex medical data and assist the physician in improving patient outcomes. I am cautiously optimistic about the forthcoming changes in medicine, as AI is making its way into our future and the applications are tremendous. A variety of new AI tools have become available in recent years that help physicians as intelligent assistants to clinicians, continually scrutinizing electronic data streams for important trends, or fine-tuning the settings of bedside devices. Computers’ potential to develop meaningful relationships with human beings begins with simple tasks like a differential diagnosis, treatment and predicting outcomes in clinical scenarios.
In medicine, there have been high-profile robotic devices that have revolutionized treating human diseases. The most notable is the da Vinci system, which assists urologists in removing the prostate in patients with prostate cancer. The system does not replace a physician; rather, this high-definition 3D system enables surgeons to bend and rotate patient tissues far greater than with the traditional unassisted human surgery. Thus, patients with prostate cancer have better clinical outcomes. More importantly, the side effects of using this robotic system are decreased and allow a faster return of erectile (sexual) function, decreased risk of urinary continence, reduced blood loss or the need for transfusion, lowered risk of complications and wound infection, and many more.
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Another common medical disorder in men is hair loss, and hair restoration surgery is one of the most common elective cosmetic procedures for male patients. In hair restoration, there’s a new type of AI — a robotic system called ARTAS that assists hair surgeons in performing hair surgery. The advanced algorithms and AI in this device supports us in performing a very repetitive and physically demanding surgical harvesting technique called follicular unit extraction, or FUE. The robot device reduces the risk of physician-induced repetitive motion disorders while also decreasing the ergonomic demands on the musculoskeletal system joints and tendons in the arms and hands. I use this robotic device when performing FUE harvesting on patients suffering form hair thinning and hair loss, a medical disorder better known as androgenetic aopecia. The robotic device creates wonderful hair grafts and is comparable to the traditional handheld FUE motorized devices, but without the hefty price tag.
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When discussing AI in medicine, we often wonder about the impact on humans, both as patients and providers. Oxford University professors Carl Benedikt and Michael Osborne, from the Department of Engineering Science, stated in a published paper in 2013 that 47 percent of the U.S. total labor market may be at risk of losing their jobs to computerization. While I don’t believe AI will replace human physicians, computers and robots will continue to replace human jobs that are primarily repetitive in nature. Some robotic devices are simple and straightforward and make sense for making predictable daily decisions for human beings. As the use of robots and AI increases, it will become a greater part of our everyday human existence — assisting in automation of routine human effort and reducing human energy and repetition. In the end, however, I predict that human touch cannot be replaced by machines, AI or computers. The hand that rocks the cradle is still the hand that rules the world.
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Artificial Intelligence and Robots in Medicine originally appeared on usnews.com
