ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) IS ALREADY ENCROACHING in many medical specialties and may render some obsolete.

This issue arose when my hospital’s radiology medical director explained that she had challenges recruiting young radiologists.

And a central culprit? Artificial intelligence (AI) and convoluted neural networks.

Machine learning approaches are targeting image-intensive specialties, including:

• radiology
• dermatology
• pathology

Specialties such as emergency medicine, anesthesia, plastic surgery, and my own, radiation oncology, have troubles, given oversaturation and encroachment from non-specialists.

Shortages

I entered medicine to help people. But job stability is an added benefit to being a physician.

But young physician trainees can no longer assume the stability I expected.

The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) projects a physician shortage of 38,000 to 124,000 by 2034.

The causes included artificial intelligence, shifting healthcare paradigms, and oversaturation.

Radiology

I want to focus on radiology, which centers on interpreting medical images.

If you have a chest X-ray, CT scan, or MRI, a doctor known as a radiologist will interpret the images.

But medical students see the handwriting on the wall, recognizing how AI will increasingly encroach on radiology roles. Some believe misinformation is influencing students’ avoidance of radiology.