Technology Cause Doctors Loss Their Jobs?

[Nicholas Kang]

I think it is possible that one day due to technology advancement, doctors will loss their jobs.

Why?

 

Operation/Surgery?-Robots and computers may help out or just simply replace man`s job to operate

Prescribing medicine?-Simply sweep your smartphone, it will tell you which medicine is suitable

Blood pressure, glucose level?-Sensors will check them out

MRI, PET, X-ray?-One day, maybe these giant structures will simply operate on your smartphone

 

And also with the development of quantum computer, it will somehow accelerate the progress dramatically.

[Roamer]

We always find ways of making jobs more efficiënt, and thus we create new (types of) jobs.

 

What we also do is putting higher requirements on jobs, and a job like doctor is prone to this kind of thing;

We will want better cure-rates, no more 50%(or whatever percentage it is not) survival rate for cancer, but as close to 100% as we can.

There will be more that we want cured, that cancer-operation has priority, but stopping the common cold would help us as well.

[Nicholas Kang]

I mean doctor would become unemployed due to advancement in technology. Technology, of course, will raise the cure rates but the cure rates will be raised due to technology originated from machine not man power like doctors.

[Phi for All]

Maybe it's a "job" we can afford to lose.

 

I've never thought modern business models suited medicine very well. Business is all about growth, and medicine should be about reducing illness. We could focus on growing good health, but that would mean giving up many of our convenient medical practices in favor of a much more daunting preventative approach. Preventative medicine isn't as profitable as surgery and pushing pills.

 

But I don't think doctors are in danger of being unemployed. There are always reasons to have a skilled human mind in charge.

[Nicholas Kang]

I think one day human mind will change into computer mind, not purely human anymore, but with chips in your brain. Skilled human mind in charge? Yeah, that works but maybe one person per hospital.

[Roamer]

I mean doctor would become unemployed due to advancement in technology. Technology, of course, will raise the cure rates but the cure rates will be raised due to technology originated from machine not man power like doctors.

 

Are you suggesting we are at a point where more doctors would not increase overal health/cure rates ?

[Nicholas Kang]

Sorry Roamer, what I mean here is in the future. You see, only technology advancement in future can take over doctors` job but not now. We will continue relying on doctors but this reliance will fade as time goes by and technology improve. Health rate, of course, will increase but not affected by decrease in doctors but due to advancement in technology too. So, advancement in technology both benefits health and at the same time decrease the number of doctors needed.

Edited June 9, 2014 by Nicholas Kang

[Phi for All]

Sorry Roamer, what I mean here is in the future. You see, only technology advancement in future can take over doctors` job but not now. We will continue relying on doctors but this reliance will fade as time goes by and technology improve. Health rate, of course, will increase but not affected by decrease in doctors but due to advancement in technology too. So, advancement in technology both benefits health and at the same time decrease the number of doctors needed.

 

How do you support this assumption? Historically, advancements in a particular field, even primarily technological ones, mean an increase in people needed to implement them. Advancements in automobile technology led to more computerized systems that required less maintenance, but we still have need of auto mechanics.

 

What you're going to see is more people with access to healthcare around the world. This is going to require more doctors, not less. Someday, when everyone who wants medical care can get medical care, this may be a problem, but until then I think we don't need to worry about a surplus.

[Roamer]

 

 

Sorry Roamer, what I mean here is in the future.

 

It'll be quite a while before we're at the point where we make nanobots that will auto-cure us without need for a doctor,

in the meantime the # of doctors/medici we need/use will be subject to our socio-economic needs and wants.

 

One thing i do notice though, is that everybody can be a semi-doctor nowadays;

CPR is taught to many people, anyone can check their disease/symptoms in online databases and order medical equipment a 19th century doctor would be jaleous of.

 

Doctors will be pushed into specialities more and more(it's where they can stay ahead of the common people) and general medical treatment is something nurses and other "lower" medici take over.

[swansont]

One the one hand, technology replacing workers is old hat. There are those who try and preserve the status quo, but that's usually just a blip in the overall scheme of things. So if it happens, it happens. Laments for the loss of manufacturers for buggies or mechanical typewriters seem to be few and far between.

 

But not anytime soon, I think. Not in the US. The number of doctors is bound to eventually increase with the increased availability of healthcare. The time constant for this or eventual replacement will probably not be particularly short.

 

The correlation of number of doctors per capita vs fraction of population that's uninsured is what you might expect. The number of doctors normalized to insured population looks to be much flatter; it pushes most of the states with fewer than 2 doctors per thousand to over 2 per thousand insured. Then you just have the relative wealth of states to worry about.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2012/10/20/doctors-shortage-least-most/1644837/

[Bill Angel]

Having technology incorporating artificial intelligence make medical judgments is like having an autopilot fly an airplane. One still wants a human pilot or human physician overseeing these processes and to handle unusual situations (or set of symptoms) that occasionally occur.

[Nicholas Kang]

One day in the future, even doctors do exist. They won`t be pure human, they might, if not all, transform into semi-automatic doctors. Why? Because chips will have been inserted into the mind and help/assist human. Then in future, who knows if one day robots themselves learn feelings and master the skills to resolve unusual situation. I am talking about future. It is hard to see the signs telling you that doctors are not needed. Before technological revolution, we still need doctors. the demand for doctors won`t just fall suddenly. Indeed, a high demand is still on the go, but not forever. Some moments in the future, (we won`t know when. It depends on how fast technology improve.) you can anticipate the fall of demand for doctors.

 

Technology advancement is accelerating as time passes by. It won`t happen now, no matter what statistics you show to prove, because you can`t have statistics for future. Sometimes, you can`t just follow the graph currently available and predict future by just extending the line. You have to take account of factors like technology improvement and the future itself.

 

No sign now doesn`t mean no sign forever; high demand now doesn`t mean high demand forever; It is just a matter of time. Time will prove it.

Edited June 10, 2014 by Nicholas Kang

[EdEarl]

Health care can be divided into realms of personal and technical. The personal side of health care will continue to provide jobs for people, almost indefinitely because people need the touch of a human hand, a hug, or a smile. On the other hand, the technical side of health care can be done by robots. Already, robots help doctors with some tasks, including remote surgery and remote patient visits. Such robots will become more sophisticated and capable. Eventually one's cell phone may contain enough sensors to eliminate some patient visits to doctors.

 

This technology would continue the trend of doctors being responsible for more patients with less of their personal time involved. For example, suppose a cell phone existed that could take a patients vitals and perform sonic scans of the patients interior with 0.1 mm precision. In addition, programming in the phone would analyze the data and provide ones doctor with a wellness and exception report. Based on these reports a doctor may schedule an appointment with a person, to perform additional tests and personally evaluate the patient.

 

This kind of technology will reduce the need for doctors, because each doctor will be able to care for more patients. In addition, similar technology can perform many tasks now done by medical technicians; thus, it will reduce the cost of health care. In addition, the personal touch can be satisfied by warm bodies, either volunteers or minimum wage medical assistants.

 

IMO these trends are already occurring, and will accelerate as time goes by.

[Nicholas Kang]

How are you going to proof that one day robot can`t be almost the same as human including face, body structure and so on. Some robots have video camera on it. So, instead of a nurse to touch you and hug you, your family members will take over their jobs. You see your family members smile is somehow a thousand times warmer than an unfamiliar nurse hug you. In the future, somehow telepathy and telekinesis are all the rage. So, mind can conquer everything. You don`t need a nurse or even family members. You just need your mind.

[Delta1212]

How are you going to proof that one day robot can`t be almost the same as human including face, body structure and so on. Some robots have video camera on it. So, instead of a nurse to touch you and hug you, your family members will take over their jobs. You see your family members smile is somehow a thousand times warmer than an unfamiliar nurse hug you. In the future, somehow telepathy and telekinesis are all the rage. So, mind can conquer everything. You don`t need a nurse or even family members. You just need your mind.

It is exceedingly unlikely that telekinesis and telepathy will be "all the rage" at any point in the future, and I say this as someone who put together a thought-controlled quadricopter as a project in college.

[Nicholas Kang]

What do you mean Mr. Delta1212? You mean my hypothetical situation is impossible? I did see and read before books discussing telepathy and telekinesis is going to happen in the future. I don`t understand why you are objecting this idea.

[Delta1212]

What do you mean Mr. Delta1212? You mean my hypothetical situation is impossible? I did see and read before books discussing telepathy and telekinesis is going to happen in the future. I don`t understand why you are objecting this idea.

There are books that say a lot of things that are wrong.

 

The closest you're going to get to telepathy and telekinesis is, possibly, the ability to interact with a computer using your brain, and then having the computer send a message or interact with the world. You are not going to be able to, for instance, make an apple float with your mind.

 

And, having some experience with talking to a computer using my brain, I wouldn't hold my breath on the ability to do anything complicated with reasonable efficiency any time in the near future.

[Nicholas Kang]

My book is Michio Kaku`s book-The Future of The Mind. Actually, I mean and I am talking about the future.

[Phi for All]

I love Kaku for getting people excited about physics, but I think his pop-sci vividness and less-than-rigorous approach to speculation can lead some to the wrong conclusions.

[Nicholas Kang]

It shouldn`t be wrong to speculate future, should it? I am just thinking of the future, maybe these technologies can become true and widely used? Who knows?

[CharonY]

Right are wrong are probably not very useful categories. However likely and unlikely are. And baseless speculations (or those with little evidence) are clearly in the unlikely category.

[Nicholas Kang]

How do you know my speculation is unlikelt to happen, books like Micio Kaku`s The Future of The Mind did speculate this and that book provides a lot of evidences, and including scientific prooves, so how is it unlikely to happen in this context?

[physica]

We will still need doctors but the skill level required will be reduced. Like in all professions there is a boom and a bust. Now in the UK as long as you get over 50% in any degree (including arts degrees) you can get into medical school and become a jr doctor in 4 years. What people fail to grasp usually is that a doctor's training is very general. They aren't a master of anything but they know a little about everything related to medicine. In the UK anyway the training is very vocational. As technology advances and more is known the role of the doctor's knowledge becomes less important. When my seniors were training a heart attack was a couple of days bed rest, there was no distinctive test. Now the testing for the biomarker troponin is becoming more and more sensitive. No matter what the clinician thinks if the person has a positive trop they will be coming in and getting the approved acs protocol medication. This is why I've gone back to university to study physics. If i see a patient with chest pain I type in chest pain on the computer and a printer prints out barcodes, I take the blood and stick the barcodes on the vials and send it to the lab. If someone couldn't do an adequate job in a hospital with 2 months on the job training I'd get them tested for learning difficulties. Although this isn't good for doctors' and nurses' ego or pay it's good in general. Patients get more standardized care healthcare becomes cheaper and more accessible.