STUDY: Comparing Physician and AI Responses to Patient Questions

Do we need doctors any more?

Two things have happened in the last few years which make it appropriate to question the role of the physician in the future. Firstly, many General Practitioners (GPs) went AWOL. Getting an appointment with many GPs was nigh on impossible and if you were fortunate to be able to wait for two hours and then charm the receptionist on the end of the phone, it was still unlikely that you would actually see a doctor face-to-face.

Secondly, AI is getting exponentially more sophisticated. Chatbots such as ChatGPT show the potential for AI to assist humans with many tasks in the future. With virtually the whole internet at its disposal, AI could assess patients symptoms and provide them with the most likely diagnosis.

We get daily reminders in the news about how the GP system is about to break down. How GPs have too many patients and too much admin. Whilst at the same time, more patients are being denied the care they need.

Whilst I have no doubt that a human GP will always be necessary to oversee things, why could AI not take over the rest of the surgery? After all, much of what a GP does is admin, initial diagnoses, prescriptions and referrals to specialists - all perfect jobs for AI.

But perhaps AI would be too impersonal and not as empathetic? We moan that we don’t get to see doctors face-to-face anymore so why would we accept a machine?

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