16-07-2025
Medscape 2050: Robert Wachter
Medscape 2050: The Future of Medicine
Have you tried an AI tool yet? Robert Wachter, MD, professor and chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, wants to know. In fact, Wachter will tell you that 'in order to be a responsible physician or probably any professional, you should be trying them today.'
Why is this so urgent? Because physicians – perhaps more than most other professionals – need support. Did you know that 1 out of 5 medical records is longer than Moby Dick? (That's not an estimate; it's been studied.) How can a doctor comb through over 600 pages of notes in the five minutes before a patient visit and feel confident that they haven't missed anything? This is just one of many 'impossible' tasks, Wachter says, that doctors face in today's healthcare system.
The 'Holy Grail' of AI, for Wachter, will be when these tools can reliably provide 'clinical decision support.' He envisions a system where AI is seamlessly integrated into the EHR, analyzing literature, evidence, and recommendations, and delivering that information in a form that is 'useful and actionable.'
Are you worrying that AI is coming for your job? Don't. These fears are overstated, Wachter says, mentioning Geoffrey Hinton's famous suggestion in 2016 that we 'should stop training radiologists now.' And yet, almost a decade later, radiology is still a crucial specialty. Even as we look toward a 'transformative moment' when medical AI will make clinicians' lives a lot easier, we shouldn't count ourselves out.
'If you'd asked me 15 years ago, which comes first: the radiologists are out of business, or I sit in the backseat of a driverless car and fall asleep on my way home,' says Wachter, who is a fan of Waymo, 'I would've said the radiologists are toast.' And he would have been wrong.
