Could AI lead to doctors caring more for their patients?

That’s a bit of a trick question, as one doctor says it could, and should, but what he means is that AI may absorb so many other tasks doctors currently perform that reviving the “art of caring” may be the best way for doctors to avoid becoming obsolete.

If a recent editorial in Academic Medicine, S. Claiborne Johnston, MD, PhD, dean of the Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin, says AI is basically going to force a readjustment in how medicine is practiced.

No longer, for example, will doctors be expected to devote considerable amounts of time to keeping up with the latest medical developments.

“The breadth of knowledge about medicine and the pace of its development has...grown exponentially, with the time needed to double medical knowledge decreasing from an estimated 3.5 years in 2010 to a predicted 0.2 years by 2020,” Johnston wrote. “This is further exacerbated by the large array of variables we collect about our patients, with the addition of detailed genetic information making it clear that our intellects can no longer handle the array and complexity of important data.

“Knowledge is much more plentiful and easier for us to access than ever before, but it is also impossible for the unaided physician to retain and process.”

As AI eliminates the need for physicians to memorize and analyze to the degree they do today, Johnston says, more time will be available for them to engage in the nonanalytic, humanistic side of their profession.  But the problem there, he says, is that “medical schools have generally underemphasized the nonanalytical aspects of the profession.  . . .(M)ost medical schools allocate substantial time in the curriculum to memorization and analysis, tasks that will become less demanding as artificial intelligence improves. The art of caring with all its components—such as communication, empathy, shared decision making, leadership, and team building—is usually a minor part of the medical school curriculum, sometimes relegated to clinical rotations or a short session on medical humanities.”

Still, he notes, change is happening, as “some medical schools have already shortened the amount of time spent studying basic science, and some have deemphasized memorization.”

Moreover, while the types of activities handled by computers right now are limited to certain areas and analytical tasks, AI will inevitably become smarter and more developed.  And as it does, doctors will have more time to train for arguably the oldest part of their profession.

Says Johnston, “As machines gain preeminence in the retention, access and analysis of knowledge, it has never been as important for physicians to recognize the particularly human aspects of the profession encapsulated in the art of caring. Listening, tone, touch and counsel are critical components of medicine and always have been. Our educational systems should rebalance the curriculum toward these components and create opportunities for practicing physicians to recalibrate and prepare for the future.”