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And now something completely different
This is one of the essays my son wrote when he applied to BS/MD program, at the age of 17
Not knowing quite what to say he retorted, I give out pills. Ah, his questioner commented, you are the low sort of medicine man. We have two sorts. The high sort we go to for counselling and advice reads a December 10, 1994 edition of the The Economist titled Why doctors? describing the conversation between a young doctor by the name of Thomas Inui and a Navajo tribesman. Almost 25 years later, the daunting question remains for science and its world of medicine: why should doctors remain if they are simply pill-givers and diagnosticians automatable by rapidly-advancing technology? The new answer is that medical science, as the ancient tribes may have known, must be much more than mere diagnosticians. Doctors, after all, are caring human beings that may reach challenges in relevance in the face of unprecedented technological advances in their own field of science.
These challenges in relevance are especially apparent from an artificial intelligence perspective, a perspective that is rapidly expanding today within the wider world of science and automation. Arterys, for example, a medical imaging startup, reads MRIs of the heart and measure blood flow, completing what a radiologist can complete in almost an hour in just a few seconds. Among primary-care physicians, even, advances in AI, could revolutionize vital data-collecting, allowing for remarkably efficient diagnosis.
Yet, these technological advances are not universal within the realm of medical science. While Arterys can read MRIs more efficiently than radiologists can, it cannot communicate with other practitioners or patients. It may be that, while advances in AI can help diagnose, a doctors gut and bedside manner is something vital to patients healing.
This analysis implies that the best approach is for AI and humans to work together in medical science. After all, the challenges in relevance that doctors face are the same ones that the low sorts of medicine man faced years ago among the Navajo peopleadvanced technology. This technology and automation should be embraced. But, as an aspiring medicine man, I would be honored to look at the world anew. I would focus on the human side of medical science, on counseling and advice, on the weird humanistic joy of automation, and most of all on the cure to the ills of the Navajo people in their search for the perfect medicine man.
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5 Replies
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“Doctors and AI will work together” is lip service that is usually spread by tech companies.
The purpose of AI is to replace physicians and to move money around. That is why dollars are being invested into it.
People should pay attention to what’s going on in China. Xi Jinping doesn’t care about protecting Flexner’s legacy. AI is getting institutionalized in their health systems much faster. Automation is coming.
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Man, he was 17. Not obsessed by money. Let him, please.
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Sorry didn’t mean to attack your son. If anything I think he did a smart move – giving the elders reading his essay exactly what they wanted to hear.
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Well-written personal statement, that’s great.
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Impressively written and knowledgeable. Way, way ahead of where I was at 17.
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