Physicians have 5 responsibilities that AI will not replace: AMA

Artificial intelligence (AI) technology is evolving quickly in health care, but trust, judgment and ethical conduct of physicians remain the bedrock of patient care, according to the American Medical Association (AMA).

“Defining the physician’s role in the digital and AI era of medicine” is a new list of “five enduring responsibilities for physicians” that are fundamental to the profession. It’s a collaboration with the Digital Medicine Society (DiMe) to supply “a foundation for continued work on how medical practice, education, technology, payment and policy must evolve alongside digital health and AI.”

The practice management statement includes a framework outlining doctors’ responsibilities. An accompanying shared roadmap covers other clinical professionals, patients and patient groups, and policymakers and payers with common goals to guide transformation over short, medium and longer terms of time.

The AMA and DiMe statement follows an essay that posited AI might be ready to deliver better medical care than human physicians, at least for five clinical tasks:

• Gathering patient information.
• Diagnosing conditions.
• Selecting tests to pinpoint diagnoses, while staying on budget.
• Recommending treatments.
• Managing chronic diseases such as hyperlipidemia, osteoarthritis, diabetes and breast cancer.

That may be just the start. The authors suggested that in the future, human physicians might be the ones holding AI back from patient care. “Will Autonomous AI Exceed AI-Aided Physicians as the Best in Medical Care?” was the perspective essay published in JAMA.

This slideshow presents the physician responsibilities, roadmap and common goals as outlined by AMA.