BY: CLAIRE KIM
Currently, doctors are ranked as one of the highest-paid occupations in the world. Because their job requires a wide skill set, emotional restraint, and an exceptional academic record from top medical schools, doctors have become a praised position in our society. The competition to achieve this high honor has increasingly become more vigorous with a growth in the number of people who want to pursue this career as well as the presence of robots with artificial intelligence (AI). Although we haven’t entered a complete digital era formulated with robots and other automatic services, the possibility of this change is currently the highest it has ever been. We shouldn’t be underestimating their coming in the future because they have already been active as a replacement for cashiers and other low-income jobs as of right now. What’s scary for medical doctors, in particular, is the fact that their occupation continues to be assumed as formidable against this digital attack when really that isn’t the case. For doctors who just complete regular medical check-ups and prescribe medications, they have a high chance of being replaced by advanced machinery and technology that can surpass their observation skills. Of course, some doctors such as surgeons can be exempt from this issue because they simply cannot be exceeded just with technology in control. To some degree, we probably assumed that robots could only be used as extra machines or tools that aid doctors, but with such a dynamic tech industry, chances of staying in this trend are slowly decreasing. Some may argue that this is just nonsense and that robots will never be able to complete such a feat but we can’t just limit what capability they have because they haven’t shown it yet. Although it may seem impossible, we have to remember that back then we thought that innovations such as the wireless cell phone were impossible as well, but now they are popular in the global space.
claire kim. 