Medicine 🩺

AI has the ability to completely change medicine and plays a role in so many of the different parts of this industry, from admin work to robotic surgery. There are both pros and cons to AI which must be considered and fully understood before using it to impact the lives of so many patients and healthcare professionals!

Pros:

• Faster and more accurate diagnostics as it can analyse results to help spot diseases earlier and with greater accuracy

• Cost effective- Although the initial set-up cost is high, afterwards it is very cost effective and could save the NHS a lot of money, so their budget could be targeted towards other parts of medicine that need greater attention

• Predicitive and Preventative medicine- AI can forecast who's at risk of certain diseases from just lifestyle and health data, enabling prevention

• Robotic surgery- surgeries guided by AI can assist delicate procedures and increase presicion, minimising error and improving recovery time

Cons:

• Misdiagnosis and Errors- AI works mainly by having an algorithm, so if there is not enough data provided, then AI will be very inaccurate and unfair. Mistakes in training can also lead to misdiagnosis which can be fatal for many patients.

• Lack of Human Judgment- AI can miss details, for example emotional cues that a human doctor would catch. AI also lacks human characteristics like empathy which is especially important when breaking bad news

• High costs of developing AI- although AI can save NHS money long-term, it would mean that initially a high amount of the NHS budget would have to go towards developing, maintaining and integrating AI into healthcare which is both time consuming and a big challenge considering NHS is already struggling to keep up current budgets!

• Unemployment- AI can be a big threat to many jobs, for example admin staff, technicians, which in turn leads to a much higher unemployment rate

What are your opinions on AI... do you think it could replace doctors one day?