As Artificial Intelligence (AI) penetrates healthcare more and more, it does pose the question: What can physicians offer?
Certainly some AI approaches depend upon domain expertise, and physicians will contribute at this level, but is there something more?
AI is an amalgamation of highly technical areas, including machine learning, programming, data analytics, and mathematics – areas which are quite peripheral to most medical practice.
It’s unlikely that physicians will have much to offer these elements of AI.
However there is an area which every physician can contribute to these highly focused areas: the ethical application of advanced technology.
You see, and as every doctor knows, there is chasm between science and ethics, and every day – 30,40,50 times a day – we have to cross it, making trade offs between privacy, risk and science.
Let me give you a typical example.
Consider the case of a sexual active 16 year old girl, coming in with lower right sided abdominal pain, concerned about sexual transmitted disease (STD) and Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID). She wants to keep this work up private from her parents. Perfectly reasonable for STD evaluations , and in most states STD evaluation on a teenager can be done without parental consent.
However, in her case, the differential diagnosis also includes an appendicitis, which may require a CT scan (with administration of contrast, which has a risk of anaphylaxis) to diagnose. There is also the possibility of an ectopic pregnancy, a potentially immediately life threatening issue.
Navigating this ethically (and with compassion) is tricky, and requires a fair amount of judgment and experience. It requires both deep understanding of the medicine and a deep understanding of people ( in this case a teenager ). In this particular case, because of the cost and complexity of the workup, and the possibility of needing surgery later that day, I would take the time necessary to have her agree to getting one of her parents involved in this.
It is this type of navigation which physicians can offer the AI community, because it is highly unlikely that the majority of people making design decisions in AI have the face to face experience with both the health risk sand the ethics surrounding such topics as privacy concerns and informed consent which physicians do.
So, for the AI folks, reach out to physicians for something beyond their domain expertise.
For the physicians, recognize your own value in the conversation surrounding ethical use of AI in healthcare.