Dr. Bot: Why Doctors Can Fail Us—and How AI Could Save Lives

It often seems now that almost any conversation we have will include a remark about Artificial Intelligence (AI) at some stage. In the Introduction to this book the author makes it clear that the aim was to foster a thoughtful conversation about the past and future of medicine from her perspective as a philosopher. However, what is not immediately clear is for whom this work is largely intended. However, it is primarily concerned with the present state of healthcare – both in Britain and the United States – where the growing use of AI is beginning to have a noticeable impact on patient delivery and outcomes.
There are plenty of statistics and references includes in the first part to support the author’s assessment, and at times it does begin to read like a paper from a medical journal. Curiously, when she turns her attention to AI matters the conversation changes to a more colloquial or folksy style – like that of numerous self-help books on the market. There are some interesting snippets of information and factoids, but overall, it does not deliver anything genuinely cutting edge that has not already been revealed or discussed elsewhere.
Furthermore, the author clearly seems to have used the book as an opportunity to air her own partisan socio-political views and ideological beliefs, which was quite unnecessary and adds nothing of any real value to the matter explored. All this goes to reinforce the impression that this a work of many disparate parts loosely assembled. Sadly, this confected symbiosis is not greater than the sum of its individual parts.
By the end, I was left thinking that this book could have conveyed so much more than it did had it been written and formatted in a different genre. For example, had the late author, screenwriter and filmmaker Michael Crichton still been alive, I can readily imagine the combination of artificial intelligence and medical diagnosis might well have been the plot basis for a science fiction and techno thriller that would have resulted in a truly gripping page-turner. As it is, Dr Bot reads more like an academic paper or overlong run-of-the-mill university lecture. My advice to anyone picking up a copy of this book is to take a quick look at it, skim through anything that catches your eye, but do not take the trouble to wade through it in its entirety – it simply does not merit that unfortunately.

A very good book. The author has taken part in a lot of research and cited the work of other researchers. She highlights the problems with medical systems in UK and US. She mentions how much problems underdeveloped countries would struggle to cope. She points out the strain that doctors are put through and that they are only human. There are studies on how doctors are resistant to changes particularly with the use of technology.

There have been highlights of cases of customers struggling to attend appointments in US and how Telecare had done consultations through video conferencing and how this had helped them especially those with mobility issues. There was a big emphasis on Empathy and how some doctors did not always show this. However I do strongly believe that they have to be quite objective and I do think a doctors do show empathy from my own personal encounters with them.

Charlotte Blease has mentioned how patients are taking more responsibility for their health through using Chat GPT and gadgets like Apple Watch. She has mentioned the drawbacks of using AI and highlights the dangers of misdiagnosis. It had included in its data other ethnic minorities when examining certain cases. Doctors have used AI and before that they used to search on Google search engines. A lot of new doctors are now more IT skilled with using computers, phones and tablets. Now lots of doctors are on social media.

I think that when creating chat bots the creators should be mindful about how much information is uploaded otherwise it may not be a good diagnosis. This was also one of the highlighted dangers. AI has done some marvellous work in the medical field and this work continues particularly through medical trials and parts of the medical field are starting to use AI. There is still the big debate on Man Vs Machines. Doctors are particularly resistant to this change. This could be a fear that it may replace them.

I do believe that human doctors will always be needed and AI can be used like many other tools to assist Doctors and nurses in the medical field. It can certainly carry out certain admin functions although we have to be mindful of GDPR and cyber security issues. Doctors are needed for many things and people will always want human interaction and don't think AI will replace them but there is room for AI in the medical field which can help assist doctors.