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Can a Computer Replace Your Doctor?

We have all seen it, heard of it, thought about it, and wondered if a computer could actually replace those long and drawn out visits to your physician. When we think of how awful we feel, and how bad we look when we are sick, along with those embarrassing questions, we often hope that we could just remedy the situation ourselves or without going into public. Have you ever seen articles like this, asking a question about medical and technology, wondering if this is the solution we have been waiting for all our lives? Have you ever stopped to double check those sources that you are reading about, or if the author is credible and has the ability to question a certain topic, and lets not forget to look at their credentials and background to see if what they are covering really is in their domain of topics to be very knowledgeable about?

Lets break down this article from the New York Times written by Elizabeth Rosenthal, a former physician who does have the knowledge to back up her criteria on the topic of whether a computer can in fact replace a doctor (the medical side), the only aspect of it that she is missing is the technological stand point, meaning she has no background in technological architecture. To break down an article and its contents you first have to look into the author for further knowledge and understanding of where they are coming from, their expertise, and their credibility to write on certain topic such as health, medical, and physicians.

Just looking at Rosenthal's background is very impressive and in fact shows that she does have the authority to write about medical views in the media and news, it also shows how wide and varied her research and topics are on the New York Times staff, it shows that she is eligible to write about medical and those who are reading her articles can take her word for it knowing that she is a physician herself along with her journalism awards such as, Asia Society Osborn Elliot Prize, the beat reporting award from the Society for Environmental Journalists, and multiple citations from Newswomens' Club of New York. Rosenthal has also been a Poynter Fellow at Yale and a Ferris Visiting Professor at Princeton, as well as an adjunct professor at Columbia University. It does not stop there, Rosenthal also has schooling behind her craft from Stanford University with a B.S. in Biology, and Cambridge University with an M.A. in English Literature as a Marshall Scholar, along with Harvard Medical School where she got her M.D. and trained at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center in international medicine. It is without a doubt that Elizabeth Rosenthal has the credentials to back up her medical articles.

Since Rosenthal has a M.A. in English Literature I am sure that she knows about doing the research to cover a topic along with how to find credible resources and knowing the true need to show those resources to her public readers in the New York Times. On top of this she includes Vivek Wadhwa, an academic, researcher, writer, and entrepreneur in the world of technology as a visionary of what the future can hold when it comes to technology and science in medical. 

Also Rosenthal includes a lot of examples of the technology that can attach to your devices such as the iPhone or computers to show you what you or your children could have when sick. "There was certainly plenty of innovation on display at the conference's rooftop reception, called "Health by Numbers": One device attaches to your iPhone and turns it into an otoscope so you can see if your child has an ear infection; another allows it to check your blood alcohol level. Attendees could check out home cholesterol test kits, and a wearable device to track the "quality" of their breathing." Each example is located on the Health Guide in the New York Times with references from Expert Panel on Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Cholesterol in Adults, Semenkovich CF. Disorders of Lipid Metabolism, and U.S. Preventive Services Task Force for Screening for Lipid Disorders in Adults, and all of these references are reviewed by David C. Dugdale, III, MD, and David Zieve, MD, MHA.

Rosenthal even includes Steven Van Kuiken, who studies both health care and technology which balances her references and sources when it comes to the technological and medical combined and that makes a huge difference in her article that will absolutely make a difference to the reader of the New York Times who is interested in both health and technology in regards to one day having an in home solution to sickness. 

Rosenthal does well of being objective, although in the beginning her comment of "As a former physician, I shivered a bit when I heard Dr. Vivek Wadhwa say he would rather have an artificial-intelligence doctor than a human one. “I would trust an A.I. over a doctor any day,” he proclaimed at a recent health innovation conference in San Francisco, noting that artificial intelligence provided “perfect knowledge.” When asked to vote, probably a third of those in attendance agreed." Does show a bias view on this question, but later on in her article she even addresses the question of how technology that can help us medically become better appreciated so that they do not become discarded Christmas presents and actually work with regards to the attention span of many hen it comes to technology because they are always upgrading and having new technology every three years therefore what will stick around for the long run both medically and technologically.

The list goes on and on, with all the changes and false myths of health where it is now, it can be a challenge in the health world and in the technology world. It all has to still be tested and Rosenthal shows this in the end, that yes it does sounds like the best idea since sliced bread, but there are still mishaps that need to be fixed, tested, and approved. It all has to be a trial and error type of deal, as it is with everything in our science and virtual world.