Source: Education Times
AI augments imparting of skills and knowledge to students and improves the quality of healthcare
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is emerging as a saviour for patients; it reduces human error and has supplemented surgical procedures. It has now become imperative to introduce it in medical curriculums across the country, at least, as an optional subject. “AI augments imparting of skills and knowledge to students. It is already being used as teleservices; we are also using Google and Microsoft platforms to teach students. AI is not just the use of technology alone; it goes beyond that as surgical devices and in operation theatres,” says Dr Amit Gupta, professor, Department of Surgery, AIIMS, Rishikesh, who pioneered the use of Robotic Surgery in AIIMS Rishikesh.
“AI helps in reducing complications and number of anticipated complications in patients and help in post-surgery care. It is a handy tool in the hands of surgeons,” adds Gupta, explaining that AI is used in softwares that are installed in robotic arms. If surgeons sitting on the console make mistakes, they get filtered out. “AI reduces the chance of human error. In our country, AI should be included as an optional subject and some basic knowledge of AI should be made compulsory for the students,” adds Gupta.
To modernise the Medical curriculum in India, changes were introduced by the Medical Council of India (MCI). “In 2019, changes were made in the curriculum to make it competency-based and more practical oriented. We have divided it into ‘desirable’ and ‘essential’. Essential part is important for students to know if they want to pass the exams. Desirable, on the other hand, aims to help students excel. As far as AI is concerned, at the moment, it is not at a large scale. Medicine is something that requires touching the patient. We do have apps for PG residents and senior residents, which directly take the students to hundreds of journals and give them the latest information. We have introduced them in central government hospitals. Covid has made virtual classrooms have become mandatory. Most of the classes are being held online only. Next week, we will open the medical colleges, but we will also make sure that the option of telemedicine is available to students and patients in rural areas,” says Dr Srinivas, ADG, Medical Education, Ministry of Health, elaborating that AI is required for conducting virtual classes and expanding medical teleservices to remote areas. -did he say something about AI in curriculum? Also, did he agree for his name to be mentioned
Deeper understanding
AI is useful in screening for diseases, diagnosis and quantification of the disease process, investigation and analysis, therapeutic decision making and even in surgical cases for precision cuts. “The main topics involved in AI include problem-solving, reasoning, planning, natural language understanding, computer vision, automatic programming, machine learning, etc. So, the medical graduates can have lectures and projects involving introduction to AI, problem formulation, searching, production systems, etc. This can be a short six-month course through medical curriculum, which can enable medical graduates to have deeper understanding and interest regarding the AI systems,” says Dr Gopal Pillai, professor and HOD, Opthalmology, Amrita School Of Medicine Kochi.
Newer and advanced technologies are being made accessible to both healthcare providers and healthcare seekers. “AI has been the most effective tool that is strengthening the healthcare environment as it enables automation of a higher percentage, which results in reducing costs, waiting period, reducing errors, easier payment options, and increased patient satisfaction. There are two areas where medicine will find applications for AI — Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning (ML). Healthcare providers are adopting virtual health assistants (VHAs), chatbots, that use NLP to improve patient experience and satisfaction. Healthcare being a data-driven industry allows AI for interpretation of data that eventually help us clinicians in interpreting clinical outcomes and diagnosis of rare conditions,” says Dr Manish Mattoo, vice president, Fortis Healthcare, Bangalore.
No blind procedures
AI reduces blind procedures. “Today, whatever we are doing, we can see it and know exactly where we are headed while doing surgical procedures. AI has reduced the possibility of human error. Earlier, the diagnosis was made on a clinical basis, but today through CT scans we can get a more accurate diagnosis without doing invasive biopsies. There are also ultrasound-guided biopsies that further enhance the quality of medical care,” says Dr Sanjay Teotia, chief medical superintendent, Sanjay Nagar Combined District Hospital, Uttar Pradesh.
