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Demand for human radiologists is at an all-time high

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Re: Demand for human radiologists is at an all-time high

#331
post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember, the AI doesn’t create anything, so you add risk potentially to the patient outcome and perhaps make advancement more difficult. My late wife had to have a stent placed in a vein in her brain to relieve cranial pressure. We had to travel to to New York for an interventional radiologist and team to fish a 7 inch stent and balloon from her thigh up. At the time, we had to travel to NYC, and the doctor was one…

> Who’s going to train the future physician the skills needed to develop the procedure? i would presume that AI taking over won't erase the physical work, which would mean existing training regimes will continue to exist. Until one day, an AI robot is capable of performing such a procedure, which would then mean the human job becomes obsolete. Like a horse-drawn coach driver - that "job" is gone today, but nobody mis…

Performing the procedure requires a high level of skill in interpreting scans (angiograms) in real time.

Re: Demand for human radiologists is at an all-time high

#332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only came to this thread to say that this is completely untrue: >Human radiologists spend a minority of their time on diagnostics and the majority on other activities, like talking to patients and fellow clinicians. The vast majority of radiologists do nothing other than: come in (or increasingly, stay at home), sit down at a computer, consume a series of medical images while dictating their findings, and then go h…

My wife is an ER doctor. I asked her and she said she talks to the radiologists all the time. I also recently had surgery and the surgeon talked to the radiologist to discuss my MRI before operating.

I'd clarify if her "all the time" means a couple of times a week. For 99.9% of cases an ER doctor would just read what the radiologist wrote in the document.

It's sort of like saying "sometimes a cab driver talks to passengers and suggests a nice restaurant nearby, so you can't automate it away with a self-driving cab."

Re: Demand for human radiologists is at an all-time high

#333
post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this indicates lack of incentives to reduce healthcare costs by optimisation. If AI can do something well enough , and AI + humans surpass humans leading to costs reductions/ increased throughput this should be reflected in the workflows. I feel that human processes have inertia and for lack of a better word, gatekeepers feel that new, novel approaches should be adopted slowly and which is why we are not seeing t…

From real world experience as a patient that has had a lot go wrong over the last decade. The problem isn’t lack of automation, it’s structural issues affecting cost. Just as one example a chest CT would’ve cost $450 if done cash. It costed an insurer over $1200 done via insurance. And that was after multiple appeals and reviews involving time from people at the insurance company and the providers office including th…

Calling that "low hanging fruit" isn't accurate, because entrenched and powerful interests benefit from it being kept that way. That extra $750 is valuable to the capitalist that gets it. The jobs to process those appeals and reviews are valuable to the employees who do them. Deleting all of this overnight will fuck these people over to varying degrees, and it could even have macroeconomic implications.

With that said, although it will not be easy, this shit needs to change. Health care in the United States is unacceptably expensive and of poorer quality than it needs to be.

Re: Demand for human radiologists is at an all-time high

#334
As someone who works in a related field, I think Hinton's original assessment is mostly correct (although we will always need a few radiologists around).

However, the timelines are far too optimistic. It takes time to refine the technology for day to day use, adapt mindsets and processes, and update regulations as needed. But it will come, it just needs more time.

It's the same story as self-driving vehicles or programming. AI will have an impact. It just takes time.

Re: Demand for human radiologists is at an all-time high

#335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an ER doc I look at a lot of my own studies, because I'm often using my interpretation to guide real-time management (making decisions that can't wait for a radiologist). I've gotten much better over time, and I would speculate that I'm one of the better doctors in my small hospital at reading my own X-rays, CTs, and ultrasounds. I am nowhere near as good as our worst radiologist (who is, frankly... not great). It…

I’m fascinated. What makes a great radiologist so much better than the average?

Im not the OP and I’m an MR tech.

I rate techs against non-radiology trained physicians in terms of identifying pathology. However techs aren’t anywhere near the ability of a radiologist.

Persuading junior techs not to scan each other and decide the diagnosis is a reoccurring problem, and it comes up too often.

These techs are trained and are good. I have too many stories about things techs have missed which a radiologist has immediately spotted.

Re: Demand for human radiologists is at an all-time high

#336

My anecdote (not data): I took a friend to the emergency room on Sunday,after a back crackup on a bicycle. Big bruise and swelling above the left eye socket and on the chin. Both hands sore and tender and stabbing pain when any pressure was put on them. The radiologist said No Fracture! So treat for concussion and release. Two days later, back with unendurable head pain. Reexamine: oh, sorry, yes, fractures. Morphine…

At busy times it’s often someone junior and under pressure reading the imaging.

Was it CT or X-rays?

X-rays are garbage compared to ct for facial fractures in my (radiography) experience.

Having taken a lot of both: if it’s abnormal on X-rays you do a CT. If the pain or swelling is huge but the X-ray normal, you do a CT. So why bother with X-rays?

Re: Demand for human radiologists is at an all-time high

#337
post #277

I'm an interventional radiologist with a master's in computer science. People outside radiology don't get why AI hasn't taken over. Can AI read diagnostic images better than a radiologist? Almost certainly the answer is (or will be) yes. Will radiologists be replaced? Almost certainly the answer is no. Why not? Medical risk. Unless the law changes, a radiologist will have to sign off on each imaging report. So say yo…

This is like saying that self-driving cars won't ever become a thing because someone behind the wheel needs to be to blame. The article cites AI systems that the FDA already has cleared to operate without a physicians' validation.

Medicine does not work like traffic. There is no reason for a human to care whether the other car is being driven by a machine.

Medicine is existential. The job of a doctor is not to look at data, give a diagnosis and leave. A crucial function of practicing doctors is communication and human interaction with their patients.

When your life is on the line (and frankly, even if it isn't), you do not want to talk to an LLM. At minimum you expect that another human can explain to you what is wrong with you and what options there are for you.

Re: Demand for human radiologists is at an all-time high

#338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you studied like 8 years of med school [1] and 2 years of CS? Damn! That’s a lot. [1] I don’t know the US system so it’s just a guess

4 years undergrad (CS, math, bio) 4 years med school 2 years computer science 6 years of residency (intern year, 4 years of DR, 1 year of IR) 16 years...

Why do you need the first 4 years undergrad - in places like the UK you can go straight to study medicine from secondary school at age ~18?

Re: Demand for human radiologists is at an all-time high

#339
post #277

I'm an interventional radiologist with a master's in computer science. People outside radiology don't get why AI hasn't taken over. Can AI read diagnostic images better than a radiologist? Almost certainly the answer is (or will be) yes. Will radiologists be replaced? Almost certainly the answer is no. Why not? Medical risk. Unless the law changes, a radiologist will have to sign off on each imaging report. So say yo…

This is like saying that self-driving cars won't ever become a thing because someone behind the wheel needs to be to blame. The article cites AI systems that the FDA already has cleared to operate without a physicians' validation.

[dead]

Re: Demand for human radiologists is at an all-time high

#340
post #56
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's assume the last person that entered their radiologist training started then and the training lasts 5 years. At the end of their training the year is 2021 and they are around 31. So that means they will practice medicine for cca 30 years which would put the calendar at around 2051. I'd wager in 25 years we'd get there so I think his opinion still has a large percentage of being correct.

And if it doesn't work out ? People can't tell what they'll eat next sunday but they'll predict AGI and singualrity in 25 years. It's comfy because 25 years seems like a lot of time, it isn't. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autono... > I'd wager in 25 years we'd get there so I think his opinion still has a large percentage of being correct. What percent, and which maths and facts let you calcul…

I mean it's an opinion (mine) so maybe feel free to disagree with me without going overboard.

> It's comfy because 25 years seems like a lot of time, it isn't.

I don't know how old you are but life 25 years ago from a tech perspective was *very* different.

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