Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again

Cardiologist Topol (The Patient Will See You Now) looks at how the use of artificial intelligence is changing medicine in a sometimes challenging but enlightening treatise. Central to his discussion is the conviction that the practice of medicine is in need of a paradigm shift toward doctors being better equipped to understand and empathize with their patients. Arguing that artificial intelligence could help achieve this goal, Topol explains how AI is already used in various medical specialties. He underscores its effectiveness in pattern reading, the major task of pathologists, radiologists, and dermatologists, as well as less developed uses in the mental health and surgical fields. These descriptions are amply supported with studies and graphs, though lay readers may find some of these difficult to understand. Topol also explores AI’s potential effects on health provider systems, apps that monitor patient biometrics, and the collection of health data. He concludes with an impassioned plea for doctors to use the time freed up by AI advances to get to know their patients better as people, and not just medical conundrums. Topol’s tour through AI’s present and future health applications will be of greatest interest to medical professionals, but anyone with an avid curiosity about the future of medicine will find this worthwhile. (Mar.)