Robot, MD: Will machines replace doctors? [View all]

[MD20]

Healthcare IT NEWS
January 10, 2012 | Mike Miliard, Managing Editor
From the January 2012 </issue/40266> print issue

Are robots poised to join the medical workforce?

Earlier this year a series of articles in Slate by Farhad Manjoo raised some eyebrows – and perhaps quickened some heartbeats. It was titled "Will robots steal your job?" Frighteningly, for some medical professionals the answer was in the affirmative.

We all know how robots are increasingly prevalent in surgical suites, that machines can be better at noticing abnormalities on radiology reports than the human eye and that humanoid robot nurses are already caring for the elderly in Japan – even approximating something of a bedside manner

But the emergence of IBM's uncannily intelligent Watson computer – first his merciless vanquishing of two pitiable human opponents on Jeopardy!, then the news that his natural language processing capabilities and ability to process the equivalent of a million books per second would be put to use in healthcare – seems to have ratcheted things up a bit.

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