In Darras and co-authors article, a question was raised in the first lecture of radiology class:
“Is radiology going to be replaced by Artificial Intelligence (AI)?”
Even after multiple reassurances from the radiologist that AI is only there to help, many students still had doubts. The reason behind that is the knowledge gap and misconceptions about AI that needs to be addressed. The gap in our educational systems can be highlighted by the fact that Medical Boards have not issued any standard guidelines to introduce AI to medical students.
A fear that AI will dethrone radiologists has forced students to be hesitant about embracing it. Further, physicians and computer scientists do not discuss AI’s role, negatively impacting the students’ minds to pursue radiology as a career.
The authors suggest introducing AI in medical schools to educate people about the applications of AI and make them familiar with using AI.
To nudge radiology educators toward being the champions of technological change in medicine, five reasons have been suggested:
- Radiologists may be the best tools to address the AI knowledge gap.
Radiologists may be the best tools to address this issue as they are the early adopters of the new technologies in the field. Thus, they can demonstrate the need for new knowledge via their experience and highlight the benefits of AI.
- AI in machine learning and supervised learning will drastically improve our accuracy and enhance patient care.
Machine Learning (ML) and its type “supervised learning” is the most eminent form of AI in radiology which aims toward improved patient care by predicting various scenarios and ensuring the best results while reducing the burden on the radiologists.
- Radiologists are responsible for educating people about the role of AI in medicine.
Radiologists owe it to all of the healthcare that they translate the role of AI to people and educate them about the technological advances aiming at improved decision-making.
- Understanding the core principles of AI is sufficient to adapt the new tools for our betterment.
A fallacy is that physicians must learn computer languages and coding to work with AI, which is wrong. They will only need to learn about the basic principles of AI that will help them better evaluate the benefits and limitations of the technology.
- AI will save time, enabling healthcare consumers to interact more with their patients.
There is a misconception that AI will affect the patient-physician relationship, which is worrisome for radiologists as there is already limited patient interaction. However, the careful implementation of AI would increase the efficiency of care, enabling physicians to spend more time with the patients. The best way to build the foundation of AI knowledge is to educate ourselves and translate the knowledge to trainees allowing them to pursue a bright future in radiology.