Authors:
Muhammad Idrees Anwar (Dean Academic, HBS Medical & Dental College, Islamabad)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.70394/jhbsmdc.v3i2.73
Dear Readers,
Let me start by thanking the entire HBS journal team for their untiring efforts to publish this volume of journal. They have worked day and night to perform a marvelous job. We hope that you would benefit from this new, excellent and intellectual work.
Not so long ago, we were watching movies like “Terminator” and we loved it. That was just a beginning of an era of robot movies. We saw a barricade of similar theme movies, especially in last couple of decades. Movies like judgement Day. Iron Giant. RoboCop. The Matrix. Pacific Rim. I robot and so forth. We all enjoyed them, but at that time, had not a glimpse of idea that one day it would be an actuality, that too in our lifetime. Then it was merely a dream, a fantasy, a hot movie topic, but guess what, now it’s a reality.
All this has become possible by Artificial intelligence. A new intelligent computer that could think, act and work, like and perhaps better than humans.
It’s a breakthrough not just for computing, engineering, and other scientific ordeals but also plays marvel in medicine. All data is entered, analyzed and processed by a computer which takes decisions based on information. This is not just an ordinary computer, but a new superfast machine that could discern, a very accurate, credible and logical decisions.
In last few years the use of AI technology has already revolutionized a lot of our medical work. You can now, not only diagnose a patient with far more accuracy, but also prescribe medicines without fear of drug interaction. Investigations can now yield much more accurate conclusions, after deciphering x-rays, Ct scans and MRIs. The accuracy of picking up a positive finding on radiological workup has reached almost 98%. In future apart from CT/MRI, all Mammograms, Histopathological slides, Contrast studies, Angiograms etc. etc., would be computer analyzed. More so it does not have that human factor, I missed it, forgetfulness or bias in it, making it extremely unerring. Doctors would just countersign the decisions to avoid a negligible chance of so called “computer error”, possible due to error in data entry.
Medical students, students, teachers also find AI as extremely useful tool. They can now solve a lot of their queries, answer difficult questions and solve equations. A lot of AI tools are now available very easily by internet. In fact, for every educational task, a separate tool is now available. Below is the list of some of the common tools available either free or at a very nominal cost.
- Chatbots (ChatGPT, Claude 2, Bing AI)
- Content creation (Jasper, Copy.ai, Anyword)
- Video creation and editing (Descript, Wondershare Filmora, Runway)
- Image generation (DALL·E 3, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion)
- Knowledge management and AI grounding (Mem, Notion AI Q&A, Personal AI)
- Task and project management (Asana, Any.do, BeeDone)
- Transcription and meeting assistants (Fireflies, Airgram, Krisp)
- Slide decks and presentations (Decktopus, Beautiful.ai, Slidesgo)
- Automation (Zapier)
But there is the other side of the coin as well. Students have already started using there the AI software’s for medical writing like doing assignments, research and other intellectual work. This plagiarized work is difficult to detect even with modern similarity index software. Not only this, but the students would stop doing cognitive and creative work and would rely more on digital technologies. Will this tool make doctors dull or smart? Well only time will tell. However, the ethical use of AI is a big challenge both for teachers, publishers and academicians.
Yet the era of AI, superfast computers and robots have started and we all have to be well versed with these new armamentaria. Robots have been possible only by AI and may replace many human positions in near future. AI software’s can help surgeons perform mush more and difficult surgeries quiet safely and intelligent robots are now used for surgical procedures and operation theaters.
Who knows, in few years’ time you would enter the hospital and would be greeted by a Robo Nurse. She would hurl you in examining room to be seen by a Robo Doc
How about that! just imagine. The era has started, friends.
Regards,
Professor Muhammad Idrees Anwar.
MBBS, FRCS, DCPS(HPE), MHPE. Editor
