alt Hacker NewsSo much of what I know from women in my life is that the human element of medicine is almost a strict negative for them. As a guy it hasn't been much better, but at least doctors listen to me when I say something.
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Perhaps, but I don't have much optimism for what this ends up looking like if it's an AI you have to convince to listen to you. In the spaces where this is already happening (rescruitment comes to mind), things are not looking good..
Agreed. Last time I was sick I said my fevers were pushing up to 100 and they said it's not a concern until 100.4. felt like an odd number. It's 38 C. Because my dramatic undersampling of my temperature was 0.4 degrees lower than their rounded threshold through some unit conversions, I clearly didn't have a fever. That's not a very human touch
Yes, yes, but when was your last period?
This even translates to the pediatric space. I took all of my kids to the pediatrician because either they don't make comments to me like they do to my wife, or I don't take shit from them. I'm not sure which. Here's an example:
My wife and daughter were there and the doctor asked what kind of milk my daughter was drinking. She said "whole milk" and the doctor made a comment along the lines of "Wow, mom, you really need to switch to 2%". To understand this, though, you need to understand that my daughter was _small_. Like they had to staple a 2nd sheet of paper to the weight chart because she was below the available graph space. It wasn't from lack of food or anything like that, she's just small and didn't have much of an appetite.
So I became the one to take the kids there. Instead of chastising me, they literally prescribed cheeseburgers and fettuccine alfredo.
My daughter is in her 20s now and is still small -- it's just the way she is. When she goes to see her primary, do you know what their first question is? "When was your last period."
At which point I'd ask: how much of that is baked into the AI now?
It doesn't have opinions, research, direction of its own. Is this a path of codifying the worst elements of human society as we've known it, permanently?
One of, if not THE biggest challenge in getting treatment is getting past insurance rules designed to deny treatment. This is much, much easier when you're able to convince a doctor (and/or trained medical staff) to argue on your behalf. If you can't get those folks to listen to you, that's probably not gonna happen. You might have to go through several different practices before you find a sympathetic ear.
Now replace some / all of those humans with... A machine whose function also needs insurance approval.
It's gonna end badly.