AI outperforming physicians. Ban humans from practicing certain medicine?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many doctors have not learned or barely practice the art of hands on medicine. They rely on labs, which is something AI can do pretty well. But hands on is really needed in many contexts and often helps to avoid expensive tests.

AI can't really replicate hands on medicine; doctors need to do more of this.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also, radiology. Why isn't that a field that will get absolutely decimated by AI. They will just take images and have them interpreted by AI that can use image analysis and machine vision that is going to be less error probe and less biased than a radiologist. No need to pay an army of radiologists $500k salaries anymore when AI can do all of the work in 1/10th the time, with less errors, and for a fraction of the cost.

I would not sign up to have an ERCP performed by AI. You wouldn’t either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, radiology. Why isn't that a field that will get absolutely decimated by AI. They will just take images and have them interpreted by AI that can use image analysis and machine vision that is going to be less error probe and less biased than a radiologist. No need to pay an army of radiologists $500k salaries anymore when AI can do all of the work in 1/10th the time, with less errors, and for a fraction of the cost.

I would not sign up to have an ERCP performed by AI. You wouldn’t either.

People won't have a choice soon when insurance no longer covers physician fees when AI will cost $20 with less error...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also, radiology. Why isn't that a field that will get absolutely decimated by AI. They will just take images and have them interpreted by AI that can use image analysis and machine vision that is going to be less error probe and less biased than a radiologist. No need to pay an army of radiologists $500k salaries anymore when AI can do all of the work in 1/10th the time, with less errors, and for a fraction of the cost.

DH works in this space, specifically the AI radiology space. He says we are very far from having AI replace radiology.

I am not sure who the OP is who keeps on insisting physicians can be replaced. There are still too too many nuances.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, radiology. Why isn't that a field that will get absolutely decimated by AI. They will just take images and have them interpreted by AI that can use image analysis and machine vision that is going to be less error probe and less biased than a radiologist. No need to pay an army of radiologists $500k salaries anymore when AI can do all of the work in 1/10th the time, with less errors, and for a fraction of the cost.

DH works in this space, specifically the AI radiology space. He says we are very far from having AI replace radiology.

I am not sure who the OP is who keeps on insisting physicians can be replaced. There are still too too many nuances.

Confirmed by an article in yesterday's NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/14/technology/ai-jobs-radiologists-mayo-clinic.html

[Anonymous]

yeah, I toooooottttallllyyyy believe eeeeevvveerryyyything I read on LinkedIn.

[Anonymous]

I already like telehealth better than going into an office. Doctors have been a pretty let down whenever I had a problem so far.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, radiology. Why isn't that a field that will get absolutely decimated by AI. They will just take images and have them interpreted by AI that can use image analysis and machine vision that is going to be less error probe and less biased than a radiologist. No need to pay an army of radiologists $500k salaries anymore when AI can do all of the work in 1/10th the time, with less errors, and for a fraction of the cost.

DH works in this space, specifically the AI radiology space. He says we are very far from having AI replace radiology.

I am not sure who the OP is who keeps on insisting physicians can be replaced. There are still too too many nuances.

OP knows better than everyone. They totally did their own research.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Saw a very interesting post on LinkedIn of a study where they compared the newest version of AI versus, human alone, and human +AI assist. The gist was that AI alone was just as good as human + AI, which were both better than human alone. The point being here human input into clinical diagnostics is now not providing anything useful over AI alone.

It's only going to be a matter of time until they try to push the argument that humans should be banned from practicing medicine due to the fact that humans alone perform the worst, and are more error prone now than AI alone. If humans aren't needed for large aspects of clinical diagnostics and AI is better, why shouldn't human physicians be replaced? Are you willing to see an AI doctor only in the future when you're sick knowing that objective data are starting to show AI alone is all that's needed and better than a human doctor in terms of error rates?

We are entering an entire new era.

AI is a good first place to start. Seriously, my partner has had some unique health issues for last 6 months. And many of the doctors refuse to admit certain symptoms may be because of X, yet a simple google search indicates that from specialists. So yeah, when you can accurately self diagnose even for "unique symptoms" it seems like doctors should start there. Especially when a general physician has no way to be 100% up to date on everything.

it took getting a few levels into specialists before one finally quickly said " yes, I have seen that exact symptom in some patients with same issues as you" and admit that's part of the diagnosis.
Why not use AI along with a real person to confirm if it gets you to the answer more rapidly. 99% of the time it's accurate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many doctors have not learned or barely practice the art of hands on medicine. They rely on labs, which is something AI can do pretty well. But hands on is really needed in many contexts and often helps to avoid expensive tests.

AI can't really replicate hands on medicine; doctors need to do more of this.

What do I need hands in medicine for though for many types of issues?

Let's say I have some kind of unknown infection. I take images of the skin rash, input my symptoms into AI, along with my labs delivered electronically and AI comes up with the highest probable diagnosis and appropriate course of action/treatment. I don't really need a handson clinical, do I? AI can also keep training itself on the entire body of new research and literature available so that it can constantly update the best prescription for treatment regimens, optimal dosing for drugs, etc. while a human physician probably almost never reads any literature after med school.

Struggling here to see why we need any doctors for hands on work if AI now does it with less error rates than a human.

If you have a skin lesion and AI diagnoses it, who is going to remove it if that’s the recommended treatment? I assume one day a robot could do it, but I think that’s a longer way off.

What if you have symptoms that can’t be shown in a photo? If I have abdominal pain, the doctor doing an exam and putting their hands on my belly to assess for pain, feel for masses, etc is doing something that AI can’t.

I think medicine is going to change a lot, but there will be a role for doctors for a while, probably for some fields longer than others.

There will definately be a role for doctors in the future. AI cannot replace them. But doctors can integrate AI/medical space searches to help direct them and/or confirm a possible diagnosis. Because when I can search and find a diagnosis for my symptoms, yet a visit to the doctor has them going a different path, you wonder can they investigate both paths?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, the Republicans pushed through a bill banning regulation of AI for 10 years. What could possibly go wrong with AI involved in health care?

Aren't we already sort of there though? I had to go in for a sleep study. All they did was make me watch a YouTube video, take home a recording device I had to setup on my own, and then I just returned the device that recorded the data.

I have no idea why I paid doctors fees to interpret a little bit of data that could probably be easily done by a simple program. The office employed so many people. And to do what? Hand people a box with a machine and show them where the link was for a YouTube vid?

There are so many unnecessary functions and jobs that can and probably should be automated away in healthcare. Yes, I know this is bad for employment. But honestly, what value are so many jobs providing that are driving up costs for things like HC?

Be glad they now allow most sleep studies (except for kids and extreme cases) to be done at home. Much better results when you are not sleeping in a strange room with noise everywhere.
And yes, the computer can interpret the results and then a doctor looks them over. Save the doctor for extreme cases.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many doctors have not learned or barely practice the art of hands on medicine. They rely on labs, which is something AI can do pretty well. But hands on is really needed in many contexts and often helps to avoid expensive tests.

AI can't really replicate hands on medicine; doctors need to do more of this.

What do I need hands in medicine for though for many types of issues?

Let's say I have some kind of unknown infection. I take images of the skin rash, input my symptoms into AI, along with my labs delivered electronically and AI comes up with the highest probable diagnosis and appropriate course of action/treatment. I don't really need a handson clinical, do I? AI can also keep training itself on the entire body of new research and literature available so that it can constantly update the best prescription for treatment regimens, optimal dosing for drugs, etc. while a human physician probably almost never reads any literature after med school.

Struggling here to see why we need any doctors for hands on work if AI now does it with less error rates than a human.

If you have a skin lesion and AI diagnoses it, who is going to remove it if that’s the recommended treatment? I assume one day a robot could do it, but I think that’s a longer way off.

What if you have symptoms that can’t be shown in a photo? If I have abdominal pain, the doctor doing an exam and putting their hands on my belly to assess for pain, feel for masses, etc is doing something that AI can’t.

I think medicine is going to change a lot, but there will be a role for doctors for a while, probably for some fields longer than others.

You're missing the point.

No one is saying this is gonna replace surgery, but it will replace TONS of doctors visits for diagnosis. That's like the entirely of primary care and the bulk of speciality care. I could pay a technician $12/h to follow an AI screen of instructions telling them where to push on a patient's abdomen to get pain diagnosis. I don't need an MD for that. Then you just press on the screen where a patient reports pain. AI takes that into account in the diagnosis.

People go to the doctor when they want to see a human. I've already gotten very good at triaging (reducing) my own visits to the doctor using Google, an advice book I got from Kaiser Permanente, advice phone lines with nurse practitioners etc.

Most of my care is checkups. I don't want to get a mammogram from a purely automated factory assembly line of robots squeezing me. When I say "Ow" I want a
trained tech who reviews images and adjusts the machine to be there. Can't even imagine a Pap without a person there.

Stop peddling your dystopia. I'll pay more to avoid it.

You can carp all you want. Objective data are data. The stone cold reality is that we are on the verge of having AI that consistently outperforms human physicians. There will be zero rational reason to have a human do tons of clinical work that a computer can now do better.

This isn't Dr. Google, lol. The typists also said a computer would never replace their typewriters too.

And right now unless you have an established general doctor, it can take 3-4 months to get an appointment. You are stuck using urgent care for most actual issues beyond yearly checkups. We don't have enough doctors.

Try getting a specialist appointment. We are with a concierge program and unless you have a massive/serious issue, it's still a 4-6 month wait to see a neurologist and other specialties. Say you have a seizure or stroke. Once you leave the hospital, it's hard to get appts with the specialists, because they are so busy and not enough of them. So any work that could be offloaded thru AI and just reviewed by a PA/nurse/MD is a good thing. We will not be putting doctors out of work, we will just be relieving the stress on the system so someone with serious migraines could be seen in a few weeks, not 6 months later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many doctors have not learned or barely practice the art of hands on medicine. They rely on labs, which is something AI can do pretty well. But hands on is really needed in many contexts and often helps to avoid expensive tests.

AI can't really replicate hands on medicine; doctors need to do more of this.

What do I need hands in medicine for though for many types of issues?

Let's say I have some kind of unknown infection. I take images of the skin rash, input my symptoms into AI, along with my labs delivered electronically and AI comes up with the highest probable diagnosis and appropriate course of action/treatment. I don't really need a handson clinical, do I? AI can also keep training itself on the entire body of new research and literature available so that it can constantly update the best prescription for treatment regimens, optimal dosing for drugs, etc. while a human physician probably almost never reads any literature after med school.

Struggling here to see why we need any doctors for hands on work if AI now does it with less error rates than a human.

If you have a skin lesion and AI diagnoses it, who is going to remove it if that’s the recommended treatment? I assume one day a robot could do it, but I think that’s a longer way off.

What if you have symptoms that can’t be shown in a photo? If I have abdominal pain, the doctor doing an exam and putting their hands on my belly to assess for pain, feel for masses, etc is doing something that AI can’t.

I think medicine is going to change a lot, but there will be a role for doctors for a while, probably for some fields longer than others.

You're missing the point.

No one is saying this is gonna replace surgery, but it will replace TONS of doctors visits for diagnosis. That's like the entirely of primary care and the bulk of speciality care. I could pay a technician $12/h to follow an AI screen of instructions telling them where to push on a patient's abdomen to get pain diagnosis. I don't need an MD for that. Then you just press on the screen where a patient reports pain. AI takes that into account in the diagnosis.

People go to the doctor when they want to see a human. I've already gotten very good at triaging (reducing) my own visits to the doctor using Google, an advice book I got from Kaiser Permanente, advice phone lines with nurse practitioners etc.

Most of my care is checkups. I don't want to get a mammogram from a purely automated factory assembly line of robots squeezing me. When I say "Ow" I want a
trained tech who reviews images and adjusts the machine to be there. Can't even imagine a Pap without a person there.

Stop peddling your dystopia. I'll pay more to avoid it.

You can carp all you want. Objective data are data. The stone cold reality is that we are on the verge of having AI that consistently outperforms human physicians. There will be zero rational reason to have a human do tons of clinical work that a computer can now do better.

This isn't Dr. Google, lol. The typists also said a computer would never replace their typewriters too.

So the typists became other kinds of low paid office drudges that still type on Qwerty keyboard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Saw a very interesting post on LinkedIn of a study where they compared the newest version of AI versus, human alone, and human +AI assist. The gist was that AI alone was just as good as human + AI, which were both better than human alone. The point being here human input into clinical diagnostics is now not providing anything useful over AI alone.

It's only going to be a matter of time until they try to push the argument that humans should be banned from practicing medicine due to the fact that humans alone perform the worst, and are more error prone now than AI alone. If humans aren't needed for large aspects of clinical diagnostics and AI is better, why shouldn't human physicians be replaced? Are you willing to see an AI doctor only in the future when you're sick knowing that objective data are starting to show AI alone is all that's needed and better than a human doctor in terms of error rates?

We are entering an entire new era.

Almost anything is better than your average doctor these days.

A person, even a sub 100 I.Q. midwit, could learn more about an illness in a few days than the average Gen Pract doc would know.

Doctors have to learn A LITTLE about A LOT, so they aren't very knowledgeable about any specific topic they don't have a lot of experience in personally.

This 1000%. so why shouldn't they utilize the avaialbe tools to increase their knowledge specific to a patients issues? Yes, AI is not always right (neither is google), but use the tools around you rather than racking your brain guessing/trying multiple things when you know that 98% of the time "with these symptoms the problem is Y". Then investigate if it is Y and if not, search more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many doctors have not learned or barely practice the art of hands on medicine. They rely on labs, which is something AI can do pretty well. But hands on is really needed in many contexts and often helps to avoid expensive tests.

AI can't really replicate hands on medicine; doctors need to do more of this.

What do I need hands in medicine for though for many types of issues?

Let's say I have some kind of unknown infection. I take images of the skin rash, input my symptoms into AI, along with my labs delivered electronically and AI comes up with the highest probable diagnosis and appropriate course of action/treatment. I don't really need a handson clinical, do I? AI can also keep training itself on the entire body of new research and literature available so that it can constantly update the best prescription for treatment regimens, optimal dosing for drugs, etc. while a human physician probably almost never reads any literature after med school.

Struggling here to see why we need any doctors for hands on work if AI now does it with less error rates than a human.

If you have a skin lesion and AI diagnoses it, who is going to remove it if that’s the recommended treatment? I assume one day a robot could do it, but I think that’s a longer way off.

What if you have symptoms that can’t be shown in a photo? If I have abdominal pain, the doctor doing an exam and putting their hands on my belly to assess for pain, feel for masses, etc is doing something that AI can’t.

I think medicine is going to change a lot, but there will be a role for doctors for a while, probably for some fields longer than others.

You're missing the point.

No one is saying this is gonna replace surgery, but it will replace TONS of doctors visits for diagnosis. That's like the entirely of primary care and the bulk of speciality care. I could pay a technician $12/h to follow an AI screen of instructions telling them where to push on a patient's abdomen to get pain diagnosis. I don't need an MD for that. Then you just press on the screen where a patient reports pain. AI takes that into account in the diagnosis.

People go to the doctor when they want to see a human. I've already gotten very good at triaging (reducing) my own visits to the doctor using Google, an advice book I got from Kaiser Permanente, advice phone lines with nurse practitioners etc.

Most of my care is checkups. I don't want to get a mammogram from a purely automated factory assembly line of robots squeezing me. When I say "Ow" I want a
trained tech who reviews images and adjusts the machine to be there. Can't even imagine a Pap without a person there.

Stop peddling your dystopia. I'll pay more to avoid it.

You can carp all you want. Objective data are data. The stone cold reality is that we are on the verge of having AI that consistently outperforms human physicians. There will be zero rational reason to have a human do tons of clinical work that a computer can now do better.

This isn't Dr. Google, lol. The typists also said a computer would never replace their typewriters too.

And right now unless you have an established general doctor, it can take 3-4 months to get an appointment. You are stuck using urgent care for most actual issues beyond yearly checkups. We don't have enough doctors.

Try getting a specialist appointment. We are with a concierge program and unless you have a massive/serious issue, it's still a 4-6 month wait to see a neurologist and other specialties. Say you have a seizure or stroke. Once you leave the hospital, it's hard to get appts with the specialists, because they are so busy and not enough of them. So any work that could be offloaded thru AI and just reviewed by a PA/nurse/MD is a good thing. We will not be putting doctors out of work, we will just be relieving the stress on the system so someone with serious migraines could be seen in a few weeks, not 6 months later.

As someone with a rare disease (actually a couple different rare diseases), this is very annoying and upsetting - but now, several years out from diagnosis, I can admit that it's not an emergency. None of it is an emergency. So 4-6 months is annoying but not an actual problem.