<p>I was just wondering, is it so far fetched to believe that doctors will become dispensable in the future? Computers and robots are becoming more readily available. Artificial intelligence is more advanced. Will doctors eventually be replaced by machines? You walk in, it does every single test, and then you walk out and it diagnoses your problems. This sounds ridiculous, but everything today is becoming automated and self-serviced. People diagnose themselves before going to doctors by searching for stuff on the internet, it may not be right, but what if a machine did tests and diagnosed accurately. Are doctors going to be outdated?</p>
<p>No, I don't think so. I think even if, hypothetically we were able to program robots to be able to diagnose every single disease, people would likely prefer seeing a real human, rather than having a machine poke and prod them.</p>
<p>Also, I don't think we could ever, or at least not in my lifetime, have robots that intelligent. I mean, I could see programming them to recognize classic "textbook" cases, but cases in real life are rarely that clear cut; there's always going to be some variation between people and cases.</p>
<p>I would say that EVENTUALLY robots will take over many of the functions that doctors do now. I can easily imagine a computer vision algorithm replacing a radiologist within the next couple hundred years. The point is though that most of this stuff will not happen within our lifetimes.</p>
<p>A computer will never do surgery, or be able to interact person to person they way a real life doctor can. Never. Sure robots help with surgery or diagnosing things but they by themselves cant do it. No two people are the same (except for ident. twins) so organs have different arrangements, they are different things moved slightly to one direction or another, and slight little details that a computer could never foresee, but a doctor can.</p>
<p>The United States Government would never allow such a thing. Take a history course and one common theme is that the US bails out industries which employ a large number of American tax-payers when the industries are failing. How much money from doctors pockets ends up on the hill? There will always be doctors.</p>
<p>Well I've got to disagree with the majority here. I think it's ridiculous to say things like this will "never" be done. If you look back just 150 years ago, there were no cars, planes, TV's, computers, even electricity. Our lives have changed more in the past two centuries than they did in the 200,000 years prior. Not only that but things are still changing at an even faster rate as the years go on. Technology continues to advance and the average IQ continues to rise despite all the naysayers claiming kids today are stupid. Can you imagine what life will be like in another 150 years? How about another 1000 years? 10,000 years? 1 million years? By then, I assure you that not only will robots be doctors but they will be very good at it. Now if you were merely wondering whether robots would replace doctors within your lifetime, then I would certainly say no.</p>
<p>Technology cannot replace clinical evaluation and reasoning. A far greater threat is the licensure of extenders such as PA's and NP's who in many states can do many things that a MD did just a few years ago. In other words, the mass of medical work requiring a MD will be reduced, but some of this will be compensated for by the aging population which will make the mass larger. Regardless, medicine will become even more highly regulated in the future, and this should be seen as the biggest "threat" to physicians.</p>
<p>i think at least 100years for robot to take over doctors..
as CDN-Dancer said, people want to see real human to take care of them..
their life is on robot's hands????no way....</p>
<p>"the average IQ continues to rise"</p>
<p>neoanderz, I thought the IQ test was designed to have a mean of 100.</p>
<p>Medicine is too much of an art to be taken over by computers/robots for at least 60+ years. Most diagnoses don't fit in nice neat little presentations. People come in all the time that astound and amaze you that they are even alive let alone walking and talking to you.</p>