Are Doctors Really Needed?

In this fast-evolving world, technologies are being updated and modern techniques are vast in many fields. What’s more pertinent here is the fact that should robots with artificial intelligence be utilised in the medical field.

I am going to give a brief overview of what roles are played in a typical hospital. In a clinic environment, consultants would most often be interacting with patients. They will understand their emotions at that present time and enhance their knowledge on their history. Any new information, any new symptoms or any new disease that patients may have encountered would be noted down in the doctor’s clinic notes. Conclusions are created regarding should they be prescribed a particular medicine or referred to a tertiary team, i.e. surgeon. So that’s the general overview of a role of a doctor in a clinic. Now, in a surgery environment, of course there would be a surgeon performing operations. They are also involved in the clinic side of work, similar to a consultant in a clinic.

However, the question is, “Can robots do the same?” There is a mixture of answers. To start off, it is possible for robots to do the same. Doctors in a clinic communicate with their patients and just like you can ask Siri a question, humanoids can do the job. Humanoids are robots with AI and they have a resemblance with a human for example Bina48. Bina48 is on one of the newly invented robot that can have a good conversation with a human. Although, it won’t be an elaborate discussion, in about 20 years or so, it will be a promising news. I purely think having robots would simply make the NHS system work better, for example in a new University Glasgow Hospital which was opened on the 27 April 2015, £1.3 million were spent on robots that will move medical supplies, linen, food and waster around; it will only save time for some NHS workers and make the system a lot more efficient.

On the other hand, we can perceive robots as an inaccurate technology. Although they can be programmed to do certain procedure, still accidents occur. For example, recent news on a 22-year-old man who was crushed by a robot in a Volkswagen factory; although it is not in a hospital environment, we can see the types of damage that are possible that can be done by robots.

When a new technology gets introduced, it has to go through a series of trials, just like drugs go through clinical phases. So I am quite sure that all these stories and any risks will be taken into account when robots and hospitals are put together in the near future.

To finish off I am going to present some advantages and disadvantages of robots for medical usage. Robots can be exceptionally useful in surgeries as they can provide better control, better precision and enhance dexterity. The number of robotic surgical procedures that take place increases year by year; 500,000 surgeries occurred using robots in 2012, so it is definitely an aspect for the future.

Nonetheless, robots can cost more, do require a lot more training than training a doctor. They aren’t always reliable for example the robot that crushed the man. More important, there will be no human feeling towards the patient if robots replace doctors which is a huge factor.

All in all, I totally believe that the way forward to making hospital work better is by introducing robots. It is really the case of whether should we ignore the ‘rare’ accidents that happen and only look at the positives, and would it be morally and ethically right to have robots to do surgical procedures when we know that they are not very reliable?