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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

#371

When Tesla demoed (via video) self-driving in 2016 with a claim "The person in the driver’s seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself" and then when they unveiled Semi in 2017 - I tweeted out and honestly thought that trucking industry is changed forever and it doesn't make sense to be starting in trucking industry. It's almost end of 2025 and either nothing out of it o…

>> it doesn't make sense to be starting in trucking industry

Still true as work conditions are harsh, schedule as well, responsibilities and fines are high but payment is not.

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

#372
post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The FDA can clear whatever they want. A malpractice lawyer WILL sue and WILL win whenever an AI mistake slips through and no human was in the loop to fix the issue. It's the same way that we can save time and money if we just don't wash our hands when cooking food. Sure it's true. But someone WILL get sick and we WILL get in trouble for it

yeah but at some point the technology will be sufficient and it will be cheaper to pay the rare $2 million malpractice suit then a team of $500,000/yr radiologists

theres an MBA salivating over that presntation

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

#373
post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bad discovery probably means your exam will be read by someone qualified, like the surgeon/doctor tasked with correcting it. False negatives are far more problematic.

Ah, you're right. Something else I'm curious about with these systems is how they'll affect difficulty level. If AI handles the majority of easy cases, and radiologists are already at capacity, so they crack if the only cases they evaluate are now moderately to extraordinarily difficult?

The problem is, you don't know beforehand if it's a hard case or not.

A hard to spot tumor is an easy negative result with high confidence by an AI

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

#374

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…

>People outside radiology don't get why AI hasn't taken over AI will probably never taking over, what we really need is AI working in tandem with radiologist and complementing their work to help with their busy schedule (or limited number of radiologist). The OP title can also be changed to "Demand for human cardiologist is at an all-time high", and is still be true. For example in CVDs detection cardiologist need to…

This seems like a task an A.I. would be really good at or even just a standard algorithm.

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

#375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under the assumption that AI has perfect accuracy. Perhaps you dodged the correct diagnosis and get to die 6 months later due to the lack of treatment. Might as well flip a coin.

Doesn't have to be "perfect accuracy". It just has to beat the accuracy of the doctor you would have gone to otherwise. Which is often a very, very low bar. What do you call a doctor who was last in his class in medical school? A doctor.

And what's the bar for people making machine learning algos? What do you call a random person off the street? A programmer.

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

#376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So, you need a moral support human? Like a big plushie, but more alive?

What is the point of the snark? If you are going to find out that you are dying within a year, do you want to get that as an E-Mail?

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

#377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The belief is -- and it is one that I share -- that this makes for more well rounded, human physicians.

Additionally, a greater depth of thinking leads to better diagnosticians, and physician-scientists as well (IMO).

Now, all of this is predicated on the traditional model of the University education, not the glorified jobs training program that it has slowly become.

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

#378
post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious how many people would want a second opinion (from a human) if they're presented with a bad discovery from a radiological exam and are then told it was fully automated. I have to admit if my life were on the line I might be that Karen.

A bad discovery probably means your exam will be read by someone qualified, like the surgeon/doctor tasked with correcting it. False negatives are far more problematic.

I willing to bet every one here has a relative or friend who at some point got a false negative from a doctor.. Just like drivers that have made accidents.. Core problem is how to go about centralizing liability.. or not.

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

#379
post #8

As a doctor and full stack engineer, I would never go into radiology or seek further training in it. (obviously) AI is going to augment radiologists first, and eventually, it will start to replace them. And existing radiologists will transition into stuff like interventional radiology or whatever new areas will come into the picture in the future.

If you believe this is true, why stop at radiology? Couldn't the same be said for every other non-surgical specialty?

Partially true, and the answer to that is runway -- it will be a very long time before all the other specialties are fully augmented. With respect to "non-surgical" you may be underestimating the number and variety of procedures performed by non-surgeons (e.g. Internal Medicine physicians) -- thyroid biopsy, bronchoscopy, endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography, liquid nitrogen ablation of skin lesion, bone marrow aspiration, etc.

The other answer is that AI will not hold your hand in the ICU, or share with you how their mother felt when on the same chemo regimen that you are prescribing.

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

#380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a diagnostic radiologist with 20 years clinical experience, and I have been programming computers since 1979. I need to challenge one of your core assumptions. > Can AI read diagnostic images better than a radiologist? Almost certainly the answer is (or will be) yes. I'm sorry, but I disagree, and I think you are making a wild assumption here. I am up to date on the latest AI products in radiology, use several of…

Can a human reliably carefully study for hours on end imaging from screening tests (think of a future world where whole-body MRI scanning for asymptomatic people becomes affordable and routine thanks to AI processing) and not miss subtle anomalies? I can easily imagine that humans are better at really digging deeply and reasoning carefully about anomalies that they notice. I doubt they're nearly as good as computers…

> Can a human reliably carefully study for hours on end imaging from screening tests

This is actually very common in radiology where some positions have shifts of 8-12 hours, where one isn't done until all the studies on the list have been read.

> think of a future world where whole-body MRI scanning for asymptomatic people becomes affordable and routine thanks to AI processing) and not miss subtle anomalies?

The bottleneck in MRI is not reading but instead the very long acquisition times paired with the unavailability of the expensive machinery.

If we charitably assume that you're thinking of CT scans, some studies on indiscriminate imaging indicate that most findings will be false positives:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6850647/

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