Why Doctors Reject Tools That Make Their Jobs Easier
blogs.scientificamerican.com
Why Doctors Reject Tools That Make Their Jobs Easier
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Re: Why Doctors Reject Tools That Make Their Jobs Easier
#2The article talks about thermometers being rejected by some doctors who thought fevers were more qualitative... they're not wrong. Different people have different average body temperatures, so a fever for one person might not be a fever for another person [1].
Obviously it's not smart for a doctor to reject the idea of knowing internal body temperatures at least to have as a data point, but those doctors weren't COMPLETELY off base.
Re: Why Doctors Reject Tools That Make Their Jobs Easier
#3Part of the issue is that the doctor is on the hook if the tool fouls up.
Consequently, having an extremely skeptical viewpoint on tools is perfectly rational.
I can also tell you from discussions with doctors that one of the problems is that the intersection of GUI programmer, competent engineer, and medical domain knowledge is either a null set or a single person. (For example: EEG analysis seems to be a natural fit for ML/AI--enormous amounts of data with events only sporadically scattered in it--yet there is nobody capable of handling the intersection of talents required.)
Re: Why Doctors Reject Tools That Make Their Jobs Easier
#4Part of the issue is that the doctor is on the hook if the tool fouls up. Consequently, having an extremely skeptical viewpoint on tools is perfectly rational. I can also tell you from discussions with doctors that one of the problems is that the intersection of GUI programmer, competent engineer, and medical domain knowledge is either a null set or a single person. (For example: EEG analysis seems to be a natural fi…
It reminds me of Moneyball; in it, the author points out that the statisticians were frustrated by their inability to get traction within the MLB, but their pitch essentially boiled down to "you guys don't listen to statistics, you should listen to these new ones we just developed," which left unsaid that the statisticians made up new quantifiers because the old ones were ineffective. The MLB had the lived experience of those statistics being ineffective, so they knew Bill James et al were right about that, but the idea that the answer was more numbers that didn't make a lot of intuitive sense was a hard sell.
I would also add that my perception from working at a major east coast hospital has actually been that hospital IT clamps down on new tools more than anyone because of HIPAA requirements, etc, that the doctors ignore/don't care about as much as they should. It's a complicated, layered system.
Re: Why Doctors Reject Tools That Make Their Jobs Easier
#5Flashy article title clickbait.
Doctors are not fools. If a tool truly made their job easier, it would not be rejected out of hand.
Job security for physicians is rarely the issue, there are plenty of sick people.
Re: Why Doctors Reject Tools That Make Their Jobs Easier
#6The article talks about thermometers being rejected by some doctors who thought fevers were more qualitative... they're not wrong. Different people have different average body temperatures, so a fever for one person might not be a fever for another person [1]. Obviously it's not smart for a doctor to reject the idea of knowing internal body temperatures at least to have as a data point, but those doctors weren't COMP…
Wouldn’t it be useful to have a tool like a thermometer to establish a baseline value?
Re: Why Doctors Reject Tools That Make Their Jobs Easier
#7The article talks about thermometers being rejected by some doctors who thought fevers were more qualitative... they're not wrong. Different people have different average body temperatures, so a fever for one person might not be a fever for another person [1]. Obviously it's not smart for a doctor to reject the idea of knowing internal body temperatures at least to have as a data point, but those doctors weren't COMP…
Wouldn’t it be useful to have a tool like a thermometer to establish a baseline value?
if they've already got the fever then it's a bit late for that
Re: Why Doctors Reject Tools That Make Their Jobs Easier
#8Healthcare industry insiders joke:
Any theory of the current state of medicine that involves a cardio-thoracic surgeon feeling like they are not completely irreplaceable, one-in-a-trillion geniuses/minor deities, put here on this planet to spare us lesser mortals (as scheduling allows) seems... improbable.
Re: Why Doctors Reject Tools That Make Their Jobs Easier
#9As someone who has had several CT scans (and paid for CT scans), the idea that a CT scan is better than a physician feeling your abdomen is absolutely ridiculous. Pumping contrast agents into everyone who has pain is a very bad idea. Moreover, enforcing decisions by algorithmic rules is problematic, especially considering who might be making those decisions.
Re: Why Doctors Reject Tools That Make Their Jobs Easier
#10Flashy article title clickbait. Doctors are not fools. If a tool truly made their job easier, it would not be rejected out of hand. Job security for physicians is rarely the issue, there are plenty of sick people.
I don't completely agree. Medicine has a reputation for being extremely conservative with technology.
It's understandable, because you don't want to mess around with people's health, but I also see doctors largely acknowledge that their field is more conservative than it should be.
It's apparently also different based on specialization. Opthalmologists apparently have a reputation for being early adopters.