Robot Doctors In Our Future?

WE HAVE MOVED TO: A Theory of Living  

       I just read this article, concerned with the possibility of doctors one day being replaced by robots.  I thought it was very interesting.  I am a bit of a technophile, and the thought of an iRobot style world, with robots to help us with all the different aspects of our lives literally makes me giddy.  Seriously... how cool would that be?

Awesome, or scary?  Your call.

          So I was reading about iRobot (a robotics company, not the movie this time) and how they have put a 6 million dollar investment into the healthcare company InTouch Health.  iRobot recently developed Ava, a robot with a tablet (Android or Apple or whatever) for a head and a robots body.  They are hoping that this robot, the first step along the way towards personal robots, would be able to be used in a healthcare setting in the near future.  This could be something simple, such as following doctors to help them manage patients' information or vitals or whatever, to something more complex such as educating patients about their disease when other healthcare professionals are occupied.  I thought this was really cool!

Unfortunately, Ava is extremely not awesome looking....
They should take a hint from Apple and make her look awesome.

          Then I stumbled on the first article I mentioned, an article which brought up the possibility of robots one day replacing doctors.  Even as I was fascinated and intrigued by the possibilities, my own self interest got in the way of my enjoying it too much.  If I'm going to blow 200 grand on my medical education (aside from my youth, time, blood, sweat, and tears), I sure as hell better have a job when I get out.

Watson

          But that said, I can see how robotics would have great applications in the realm of healthcare.  I read an article by Atul Gawande a while back, and it discussed the fact that the field of medicine has outstripped the capacity of the human mind.  Even within a specific specialty, the sum total of knowledge related to that field is beyond the ability of a single person to master inside and out.  This is where robotic opportunities come up.  What if we could have our own Watson (the IBM robot that showed off it's encyclopedic knowledge on Jeopardy) following us around, helping us examine ambiguous symptoms in light of the most recent research?  I think the possibilities are pretty cool.

          There are other avenues for robotics to assist in health care.  For example, Intuitive Surgical is at the head of the Da Vinci surgical system, a surgeon directed robotic arm that has apparently helps surgeons significantly cut down on patients' recovery times from certain surgeries.  I find the possibilities in this area to be fascinating.  The system is currently only capable of a relatively limited number of surgeries, but that number should be growing.  Not only that, but Mako Surgical Corp is developing an orthopaedics surgical arm designed to assist with ortho surgeries; evidently the possibilities for this surgical arm are considered great enough that Stryker Corp, a massive medical conglomerate, is considering developing its own arm to compete.  The implication I see in that is that they are worried this arm could replace many of the surgical instruments that are their bread and butter.

Surgeons hard at work with the Da Vinci

          I'm sure most surgeons are great, but unfortunately their tools, their hands and fingers, are prone to the same failures ours are.  They can slip, shake, get tired, etc.  Put them, with all their years of experience and knowledge, behind the controls of a robot that has literally perfect precision... and I think we can accomplish some pretty amazing things.

          The rate at which the technology around us advances is mind boggling, and I for one am excited to see what the future holds, whether it's the iPad I'll be getting in a week or so (more on that to come), or robotics in healthcare.  I say that with one caveat, though, and that lies in my hopes that my 200k education doesn't become obsolete... at least until I pay all the debt off.  Personally, my money is on the surgical arms being much more a part of our future than the actual robot doctors... if the Roomba (vaccuum disk robot) is the best they have come up with in the last 50 or so years, I somehow doubt they'll be pumping out robotic diagnosticians.