Will AI replace doctors? Is artificial intelligence a threat to doctors? Let’s find out.

Due to the gradual development of artificial intelligence (AI) in the present time, many people are wondering whether AI will replace doctors. Has artificial intelligence really achieved that level of skill? Or will it be possible to acquire such skills in the future—skills that will be able to replace a doctor?

To put it simply, it is fairly clear from the data obtained so far that AI is unlikely to completely replace doctors. AI will work for doctors, not against them. But for now, AI is not a threat to doctors because AI will work as a doctor’s assistant. It will increase the speed of the doctor’s work. AI will play a role along with the doctor in the diagnosis. AI will help overcome human-made mistakes. AI algorithms will help doctors in the same way as various medical devices help doctors. However, although AI currently works with doctors, experts believe that AI will replace some doctors in the next 10 years.

Although currently AI is assisting human doctors in providing treatment in many ways, for some reasons, human doctors are still ahead of artificial intelligence. And for all those reasons, the possibility of replacing human doctors with artificial intelligence is not possible for now. Let’s discuss some such reasons.

AI is not replacing doctors but working with them:

Since artificial intelligence has no thoughts of its own, it only works the way it is trained. Therefore, artificial intelligence is currently used only to assist doctors in this sensitive field like treatment. AI is not being used instead of doctors. AI is helping doctors complete the work of human doctors faster. Artificial intelligence working together with doctors has increased efficiency and capacity in the medical field.

AI is mainly helping patients in various tasks such as analyzing data, providing medicines to patients on time, taking care of them, etc. However, until now, human doctors are being used to make decisions about any complex treatment, consider the patient’s mental condition, etc.

The bond of sincerity between human doctor and patient:

There are still some emotions that can only be expressed by a human doctor, which cannot be done by AI. One of which is to express one’s feelings and to understand the feelings of others. Doctors can connect with patients emotionally and care for them, which AI cannot do. Human doctors can empathize with any emotion of patients. This shows sincerity between doctors and patients. It creates an emotional bond between the doctor and the patient. That is not possible with artificial intelligence.

Human doctors are ahead of artificial intelligence in some areas:

The way human doctors use constructive thinking and their own intelligence to communicate with the patient in diagnosis, it is not possible for artificial intelligence to do all these tasks by itself. Because AI systems are designed for certain tasks. The tasks AI is able to do best and accurately are within their limits. Also, AI does not have its own judgment that human doctors have. Artificial intelligence does not have the kind of experience that human doctors have in their medical career. Human doctors are ahead of artificial intelligence in this field.

Doctors Ahead of AI in Protecting Patient Privacy:

Some concerns remain about the extent to which patient privacy can be protected due to the use of artificial intelligence in medical care. Many of us are familiar with information security risks in the technology sector. Since AI is fed a lot of important and confidential information about patients, there is a possibility of personal information being exposed by hackers. If all this work is done by artificial intelligence, it lacks accountability. As a result, human doctor supervision is important in protecting patient privacy.

A doctor’s supervision is essential in the treatment of AI:

However, AI algorithms can detect many complex diseases easily. Even then, if any disease is wrongly detected by AI later on, the possibility of harm to the patient remains. For this reason, there is a need for doctor’s supervision along with the AI algorithm.

AI can assist human doctors in many ways, and in some cases, AI algorithms are able to perform better than human doctors. It is helping patients to get better and modern treatment on one hand. On the other hand, it poses the risk of human doctors being replaced by AI. So let’s take a look at some examples of how AI is benefiting medical science, how AI is helping doctors, and how AI is endangering human doctors.

AI can help doctors diagnose cancer:

Due to the incorporation of AI in the medical field, the work speed of doctors has already increased significantly. The quality of treatment through AI will improve in the future, and the scope of the doctor’s work will be greater. AI currently works alongside doctors in image-based fields like radiology. By doing this, AI algorithms are helping doctors to detect complex diseases like lung cancer. AI algorithms can diagnose early stages of cancer much more accurately than human radiologists. Many times it is not possible to detect such subtle stage cancer by a human radiologist. For example, through mammograms, AI algorithms can detect breast cancer at an early stage with high accuracy. AI algorithms are already working as a boon in the diagnosis of dreaded diseases like cancer. Because we all know that the earlier the cancer is diagnosed, the better the patient’s chances of survival. AI can also help in the education of apprentice doctors. Also, AI algorithms are being used to accurately diagnose the disease by observing the report of X-ray.

AI’s fatigue-free treatment:

Human doctors get tired after a certain period of time while providing treatment. If a human doctor does not rest during the treatment, no matter how skilled he or she is, he/she is likely to make mistakes in his work. This is a limitation of human. But AI medical systems never suffer from fatigue. AI algorithms can work continuously and the systems are able to work continuously with accuracy within a certain range. Which is never possible for a human doctor.

Will AI Replace Surgeons?

From what we have come to know, AI can, in some cases, perform surgeries more precisely than surgeons. However, since this is a sensitive matter, AI will work alongside surgeons in such cases. In surgeries that require delicate procedures, surgical robots will be used. In short, AI will not replace surgeons, but it will assist them in performing surgeries with greater precision.

Physicians without AI will fall behind:

The American Medical Association (AMA) reports that compared to the progress that human doctors are making using artificial intelligence, human doctors who continue to practice medicine alone without artificial intelligence will soon lag behind those doctors who use AI in their treatment.

Providing modern medicine through AI:

By combining information from updated medical journals based on the latest research, and vast amounts of past patient diagnosis data, AI algorithms can assist human doctors in diagnosing a patient’s current condition and determining the best treatment for that condition.

AI can assist human doctors in telemedicine:

Many of us have heard of telemedicine. In all places where the doctor is not able to go directly to the patient and provide treatment, in this case the doctors provide services to the patients through telephone or video call. Currently many telemedicine services are using human doctors as well as AI algorithms. In this case, AI-powered platforms help human doctors to diagnose and provide medical assistance.

Scheduling of doctor’s appointments by AI:

Also, AI can assist human doctors in all the tasks that include scheduling appointments of human doctors with patients, preparing patient bills after treatment, etc. Since all these tasks were previously performed by humans, which is no longer required today. Therefore, AI helps in reducing hospital costs in all these cases. As a result, patients are spending less money on medical treatment than before. This is beneficial for patients. On the other hand, due to AI, the work of human doctors is also being completed in the fastest time.

Google’s AI algorithm is doing better than Radiologist:

It is also known that some AI algorithms are performing 5% better than human radiologists.  Some such AI algorithms are being used in diagnostic centers. These algorithms have been created by Google with the data of about 42 thousand patients. Google’s AI algorithms are performing better than human radiologists. In addition, AI can detect subtle patterns in diagnosis that are almost impossible to detect by human doctors. So many see AI as a threat to radiologists. Although AI algorithms are currently helping radiologists to increase the accuracy of their work, experts believe that AI may replace radiologists in the near future.

AI can help doctors diagnose:

One of the types of artificial intelligence jobs is to identify similarities or anomalies in the data given to the AI. As a result, by using this ability of AI in the medical field, it is possible to do complex analyzes like MRI and X-ray very well and accurately. Thus AI is assisting doctors in diagnosis.

In some cases, AI is better than human doctors:

AI can detect subtle patterns that human doctors’ eyes cannot easily detect. As a result, AI can help human doctors make accurate diagnoses, as it detects all the symptoms that human doctors’ eyes miss.

AI can assist doctors in selecting potential drugs for a patient:

Since artificial intelligence can process large amounts of data in a very short time and very accurately, medical scientists can use AI in their research by exploiting this ability. After providing all the information related to the patient’s problem, the AI ​​can analyze all that information and make a perfect idea about the possible and best treatment for the patient.

Getting FDA Approval of AI Algorithms:

We already know that there are many AI algorithms that work alongside doctors to speed up the work of doctors and improve the accuracy rate of doctors’ work. In the crowd of many AI algorithms, there were various questions about which algorithms will work alongside doctors. Because all these AI algorithms will be used in the health sector, which is a touchy subject. So it can be dangerous to let an algorithm work alongside a human doctor without testing. So some algorithm approval was needed. Later, the FDA tested some of these AI algorithms for some time, and after the tests, about 700 AI algorithms were finally approved by the FDA to work alongside doctors. Tests have shown that these algorithms are able to work best and perfectly alongside human doctors. As a result, the quality of human doctor’s work has improved. Therefore, there is no obstacle to use these 700 AI algorithms alongside human doctors, approved by the FDA.

AI can help medical scientists research:

In addition, medical scientists analyze a large amount of data in order to discover better and better drugs through research. Since a lot of information has to be worked with it requires a lot of time. AI on the other hand can process huge amounts of information in a very short time. By exploiting this advantage of AI, medical scientists can accelerate their research. Which can help medical scientists in the discovery of new drugs in a relatively short time.

AI’s contribution to hospital management:

AI can assist in hospital business management. AI can help provide better care by analyzing patient data. For example, to provide medical services in hospitals, doctors, nurses assisting doctors or others as well as some ancillary equipment are needed. AI can play an important role in analyzing all the information of hospitals and patients. For example, how much manpower is required to provide adequate services to patients in the hospital, or is there a need for more equipment beyond what is currently available? If necessary, what amount of equipment should be provided? By using AI, it is possible to analyze all kinds of data and make accurate calculations about them. AI can be used in many ways to get all the ideas related to the development of medical system in the hospital. Above all, artificial intelligence can be used in the efficient use of resources allocated to hospitals.

AI-provided treatment methods considering the patient’s lifestyle:

AI algorithms can research the patient’s lifestyle and suggest the most advanced and best treatment methods specifically for the patient. Later, this suggested treatment method form AI and the treatment method of the human doctor can be combined to provide the patient with extraordinary and best treatment methods.

Although AI has been developed to assist doctors, AI is now more effective than human doctors in some cases due to the increasing development of AI. If this continues, experts believe that AI may pose a threat to human doctors in the distant future. Let’s take a brief look at it.

Threats of unemployment of human doctors due to AI:

The incremental development of AI algorithms will continue in the coming days. AI is doing better than human doctors in some cases in medical diagnosis. For example, in some cases, the subtle patterns in the diagnosis may escape the eyes of the human doctor, but AI can detect these subtle patterns very easily. As a result, AI works better in these cases than human doctors. If in the coming days AI is able to do more good work than human doctors in many more cases, then there is a fear of unemployment of human doctors due to AI in the near future. 

As a result of the increasing development of AI algorithms, if human doctors are replaced by these AIs at some point in the future, unemployment among health care providers may arise in the future.

Doctors may be replaced by robots:

Although AI robots are currently assisting doctors in their work, as a result of increasing development, in the future AI robots may replace doctors in some cases. Because currently the number of high-tech surgical robots is increasing day by day. There are some surgical companies that are developing rapidly with the cooperation of billionaires like Bill Gates. Also, according to Silicon Valley investor and Bill Gates, AI robots could replace many human doctors and teachers by 2035. 

It is undoubtedly true that AI is playing an important role alongside doctors in health care. In particular, AI is helping human doctors to provide better treatment and work faster. Artificial intelligence has already changed the way doctors work.

However, AI will not be used as a replacement for human doctors for now. AI will work with the human physician. But it remains to be seen what level AI will reach in the next ten years.

Another interesting thing is that if the doctor was a robot-like artificial intelligence instead of a human, then maybe many people would be skeptical about the treatment at first. I would buy medicine and sit with my hands. I would be afraid to take it. Then I would go to the human doctor to check if the medicine was right. Then I would take the medicine. Because the robot doctor would make me afraid.

What would you do in this case? If you ever had to get treatment from an AI doctor? Let me know your opinion.

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