This medical student wants to be a radiologist. Does the field have a future?

Artificial intelligence, or AI, is a term that is often associated with robots or computers that “learn” by having material introduced to them. Different people have different reactions to the idea of AI, especially with its potential use in medicine. AI can perform many tasks at the same time and in the same way producing results that will always be precise, but not necessarily accurate. This is relevant to fields like diagnostic radiology, where the importance of recognition of pathology on imaging is essential to providing a diagnosis. There is an art to identifying pathologies, variants and “normal” reads, so the thoroughness and attention to detail necessary to perform accurate reads cannot be emphasized enough. After four years of college, possibly a year or two of graduate school, and four years of medical school, a student transitions to a resident physician. After another four or five years, a resident becomes a fellow and then an attending physician. This is quite the journey; so many factors have to be taken into account when choosing a medical specialty. So does the possibility of integration of AI into a field like Radiology influence a medical student’s decision when choosing a career? Of course it does. One of the first questions you are constantly asked as a third-year medical student on rotations is: “What do you want to go into?” There are many different ways to approach that question, but I choose to answer honestly, but respectably, “diagno...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Education Radiology Source Type: blogs