The following is a guest article by Alejandro Spiotta, M.D., Department of Neurosurgery, Medical University of South Carolina.
Physicians are only human – we don’t have limitless computing capacity, we undergo emotional strain and feel the symptoms of burnout. As a physician, one of the ways I (and many others) unplug and recharge is through interests outside of the hospital that bring levity and stimulate my mind in other ways. For some it may be through reading, painting and other creative pursuits. I enjoy the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) with my children.
As the universe housing all of Marvel’s many superheroes, the MCU is filled with superhumans, intergalactic and multiversal beings, and futuristic technology – to name a few. However, the foreign beings and pure fantasy aside, I often think about how my cinematic escape from my clinical universe is increasingly less fantasy and more a roadmap for the future of health technology. I can’t help but connect its applications back to healthcare, and specifically emergency medicine, where every day is a race against the clock in acute care.
I believe the coming wave of technological improvements will profoundly and forever alter the way we as physicians interpret images, communicate across large healthcare systems and interact with patients, and ultimately treat diseases. In fact, some of these advancements are already here in some capacity. Here are some of the parallels between the MCU and the clinical realm, and some lessons I think we can draw from them.
Technology Isn’t Here to Replace Us
Cyborgs, a common persona in the MCU, is a being with both organic and mechanical body parts. Though they may seem entirely robotic, they are actually simply enhanced by technology, but ultimately human. Similar to the technologies clinicians use day-to-day which are not capable of operating without or replacing us as humans, instead they are there to support us and enhance the quality and speed of the work we do. Both physicians and the technology they use are dependent on each other, and are the most effective when working together.
While there is lingering fear from physicians that technology will replace them, I believe this will never happen. Especially in emergency medicine, technology can only help us, make our work faster and more accurate, validate our diagnostic decisions when we are overworked, and help us see new things that human eyes (even those of experienced clinicians) may miss. It can both augment our clinical acumen and function as a safety net, ever-present in the background.
Our Own Heads-Up Display Isn’t Far Off
One of the most important and recognizable characters of the MCU is Tony Stark’s Iron Man and his iconic red and gold titanium suit. He hovers thousands of feet off the ground, fighting villains, shooting repulsor beams from his palms, all while speaking with his AI assistant J.A.R.V.I.S. through his helmet’s Heads Up Display (HUD). Tony’s HUD gets him the information he needs, such as rapid research, communications and external coordination. While this may seem incredibly futuristic, it really isn’t that far off from what we are getting with some AI-enabled tools today.
AI-powered clinical decision support tools like RapidAI, for example, empower physicians with real-time information to frame our decision making. While these tools are not yet in the form of a headset like Iron Man’s, they are already in the palm of our hands on our mobile devices, programmed in our laptops or embedded into our existing software. It arms us with the advanced imaging, communication and decision-making support that helps us diagnose patients quickly, treat patients more efficiently, and ultimately improve outcomes for real people. Again, this technology is not replacing us, but when we want to explore outside our common thinking, we turn to these technologies for additional contextual data.
While we have come so far with clinical technology in the last decade, we certainly have further to go. Luckily, we can only advance from here. We need to embrace the technology we have at our disposal today, become our own Avengers in the clinic, and use these tools to save the world in the way that we do — saving patients’ lives.
