Is trust enough to use AI in the medical field?
Working in the medical field requires a lot of knowledge, continuous skills, and an utmost attitude when faced with different patients, families, along with their different perceptions on culture and beliefs. Health care professionals are dealing with life threatening situations that need optimal care. As humans, who have a heart that can feel every emotion and feeling, we also need and crave this kind of attention when being cared for. We need to be healed and cured internally and not only on the external aspect.
When I first heard of AI or artificial intelligence, all I could think about was, “How can these machines/systems communicate well with the patients or humans as a whole?” “How can they develop that so-called therapeutic communication?” Knowing in the first place that these AI’s only have pure cognitive domain and cannot execute emotions. They are built to make fast paced clinical decisions, provide smooth access to medical records, and even to make precise actions when it comes to surgery. To look at it closely, yes, they may be valuable tools in the medical field because of these benefits they offer. Given that every second, someone needs the help of the health care professionals, may it be life threatening or not. Moreover, a lot of burnouts are being experienced by them when the ratio between patients and medical practitioners seems to be unbalanced. In times like this, I can say that we need the presence of machines or specifically, these robots who have been implanted with artificial intelligence.
Trust. It may just be one word but it instills a lot of knowledge. It can ruin one’s life including their families. That is why intense research is needed from time to time and a lot of patience. One should weigh every choice to be made since we are dealing with life here and we are only given one chance to experience and live with it. To end this, I think we should not entirely cancel the expertise and power of the AI’s instead, we should give them the chance to improve their system. In the end, they still have this good side of them where they can work together with the healthcare professionals. But not to entirely take over their course of practice because in this field, humans are needed. The care that humans offer is a vital part of healing.
Reference:
Asan O, Bayrak AE, Choudhury A,. (2020). Artificial Intelligence and Human Trust in Healthcare: Focus on Clinicians. J Med Internet Res. 22 (6). Retrieved from: https://doi: 10.2196/15154
