Imagine, the possibility of a robot standing near your operating table with its silver metal hands operating on your brain. It may seems hard to believe but specialist within the medical world say that medical staff will eventually be overtaken by robots (Yasa, 2018). Robots are disrupting the healthcare industry. In fact, there are already some robots in the health care industry: Watson and Da Vinci, these are not names of intelligent human doctors but of robotics that are being used within the medical field.
First, we have Watson, Watson is a robot that is developed by the global technology company IBM to help physicians with their diagnosis and management plans for patients who suffer from cancer. Watson is stored with information from restrictions, rules, medical journals, practices and books (IBM, n.d.). The previous mentioned in combination with a patient’s medical record, will eventually lead to the best possible solution based on evidence.
Da Vinci is another popular medical robot that assist surgeons during an operation through a technology that enables precise movements by using small instruments. The robot recreates the hand movement of surgeons. Da Vinci is available in Australia and around the world and it has already contributed to more than a million operations (Anandan, 2015).
The application of robots in the healthcare industry is still in its initial phase and Robots as Watson and Da Vinci are still not common within the medical field. The technology needs to advance further before it will completely take over the physician’s work. If the robots are fully developed, they will probably treat patients better than any doctor could . Scientist assume that this new reality will probably happen over a longer period of time.
The question remains, who do you want as a doctor, a human being or a robot?
Anandan, T. M. 2015. Robots and Healthcare Saving Lives Together. Robotic Industries Association. Retrieved on 10 October 2018 from: https://www.robotics.org/content-detail.cfm/Industrial- Robotics-Industry-Insights/Robots-and-Healthcare-Saving-Lives-Together/content_id/5819.
IBM, Retrieved on 10 October 2018 from: https://www.ibm.com/us-en/marketplace/ibm-watson-for-oncology
Yasa, D. 2018. Why Robots Could Soon Replace Our Doctors. Retrieved on 10 October 2018 from: https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/why-robots-could-soon-replace-our-doctors/news-story/9c33db2f25e0fff6184603b38cdc641f
