AI-based medical diagnostic services to be launched in Japan

I don't see AI exhibiting Compassion anytime soon.

Lol - many doctors don't too. But this AI is targeting scan/test results (image recognition) to find anomalies and to suggest diagnosis - with the doctor to confirm that diagnosis. This won't change a doctors' compassion, or lack thereof. 

Technology is already used in many tests - bloodwork is fully automated, as is urinalysis. Pathology - the viewing of slide smears, is wholly manual and possibly another area for AI. On some of my biopsies, 3 in-house pathologists viewed, then a once-a-month consultant, and now the slides are sent to a third party - all manual eye-to-the-microscope examinations, and time consuming. Had a quick pathology determination been conducted when they had me open, they could have closed me up without taking the organ. AI technology could have sped it up, and probably improved accuracy.

AI or GP, whatever is wrong with you , you get the same Medicine each time... Although I think this may be good in someways, a Human touch is required - I don't see AI exhibiting Compassion anytime soon.

The problem that needs to be addressed is mandatory crew rest. Doctors cannot be trusted any more than fighter pilots to do their job on fumes and 3 hours of sleep. Doctors should not work any more than 8 hours per day - mandatory max. Punish both hospital and doctor (prevents finger pointing avoiding blame) and put covert inspectors inside to ensure compliance. Fatigued and sleep deprived people make mistakes.

Software-aided medical devices are expected to lessen the burden on doctors in diagnosis while reducing human error.

Who is responsible if the AI is wrong? The doctor or the software developers? This is what I don't like about AI being used as a diagnosis tool. It removes any responsibility and/or accountability from the doctors.

I won't say all doctors here, since my favorite doctor in the world is an old Japanese man and he's been a literally God send to me and my family... but there's some here that should really update their medical practices.

My local doctor just diagnosed me with asthma a few days ago after a few years of random bouts of coughing and wheezing, bronchitis every few months, etc. That should have been a really bloody easy diagnosis looking back. I should trust my own instincts more than I do now, I think.

@Omachi

Sorry to hear about your misdiagnosis. My brain tumor was first diagnosed as being gout, and that was despite both me and my wife's insistence that it couldn't possibly be gout.

Once we got to a university teaching hospital however, they were a welcome change in professionalism. If possible, look around for a big university teaching hospital to get a another opinion. The one I use now has visiting overseas surgeons, English speaking neurosurgeons, and the surgeons go for three month training based sabbaticals to North American hospitals every few years. The morning ward rounds are even conducted in English, because the head teaching professor thinks surgeons should have a good grasp of English so they can understand the latest foreign medical research, as well as attend overseas conferences.

As for misdiagnoses issues, that happens in every country, including my home country. My home country has started using AI diagnostic tools as a backup to the GPs diagnosis in some clinics.

@Omachi Sorry to hear of your lost organ. This new AI software needs to be implemented ASAP to avoid mis-diagnoses.

@AgentX I hope Cyberdyne Systems doesn't give rise to the machines and become the downfall of the human race, lol.

Cybernet Systems Co

Why does that name come across as a direct rip-off of the famed "Cyberdyne Systems" that created "Skynet" in a famous movie?

I agree. I am currently in a dispute, having unnecessarily lost an organ thru surgery and having undergone inappropriate treatment where the initial mistake, was in not correctly reading a scan and including accurate findings in the technician report. I get it that the reading technician reads hundreds a day and being human can miss something – but once that is missed and a resultant miss-diagnosis is proclaimed by a doctor, it seems that there is no going back in spite of a series of new evidences to the contrary. It has taken 18 months to reach the correct diagnosis and start the correct treatment, and to look back on that initial scan to see that the evidence was there from the very start. Advanced technology needs to be deployed ASAP.

Given the multiple, shockingly bad experiences I have had with Japanese human "doctors", I can only imagine this is a good thing!