I read an earlier book of Eric Topol’s (The Creative Destruction of Medicine: How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Health Care) and got a lot out of it, although I don’t know to what extent his ideas will come to pass. The Economist reviewed his more recent book, “Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again”.
The Economist reports:
The fear the author harbours [referring to Topol] is that AI will be used to deepen the assembly-line culture of modern medicine. If it confers a “gift of time” on doctors, he argues that this bonus should be used to prolong consultations, rather than simply speeding through them more efficiently.
But then goes on, in true Economist style:
That is a fine idea, but as health swallows an ever-bigger share of national wealth, greater efficiency is exactly what is needed, at least so far as governments and insurers are concerned…. An extra five minutes spent chatting with a patient is costly as well as valuable. The AI revolution will also empower managerial bean-counters, who will increasingly be able to calibrate and appraise every aspect of treatment. The autonomy of the doctor will inevitably be undermined, especially, perhaps, in public-health systems which are duty-bound to trim inessential costs.
Modern medicine — as implied — is already an assembly line culture. And yes, many of us think it will get worse. Staff retention will get worse, too. If you want to see the future of medicine as a career, look at what has happened to school teachers within public systems (or academics in most universities in the UK). Blame it all on poor Max Weber, if you will. Those in charge have very little feel for what ‘doing medicine’ is all about. But there seems to an elision between ‘greater efficiency is needed’ and talking to patients being ‘costly and valuable’. Interesting to note that only the public systems are obliged to trim ‘inessential costs’: Crony Capitalism feasts on the wants rather than the needs.