13 hours ago
Lisa Sanders: Full Interview Summary
Medscape 2050: The Future of Medicine
In just 25 years, your annual medical checkup will undergo a makeover that would make Marcus Welby, MD, think he'd stepped onto the set of Star Trek. There will be no waiting room; you will check yourself in on a digital tablet. Your doctor will still greet you wearing a stethoscope, but it will be outfitted with a mini-ultrasound tool so your MD can see, as well as hear, your heart rate and breathing. Even the standard physician's clipboard will get an upgrade — becoming a mini-tablet containing all of your digital medical records, and the entire global library of medical data.
These are just a few ways the practice of medicine (and the traditional annual physical) will change by 2050, according to Lisa Sanders, MD, professor of medicine at Yale School of Medicine and medical director of Yale's Long Covid Multidisciplinary Care Center.
New technologies — artificial intelligence, electronic medical records, and other med-tech innovations — will make those sci-fi medical transponders Dr McCoy used on 'Star Trek' seem old-fashioned by comparison, Sanders says. She even believes an entirely new medical specialty will emerge: the 'diagnostician,' trained in how best to combine the latest medical technologies with the human touch MDs bring to their practices.
But one thing that won't change and may even become more central to the practice of medicine 25 years from now: The connection between doctor and patient.
'Now we have AI and I think that the potential for AI has been tremendous. But…it's still new,' she says. 'You know, people are already trying to get past the physical exam…but the physical exam was invented so that we could try to get a sense of what's going on inside the body. The out to be very important… It's part of a relationship you have — an intimate relationship — with a patient.'
That's something Sanders says was emphasized during her treatment of the emerging COVID-19 pandemic, when no medical technology could diagnose or treat the condition.
Welcome to Modern Medicine 2050.
