Contributor & author: Marilyn M. Singleton, MD, JD, (California) board-certified anesthesiologist and President of Association of American Physicians and Surgeons  (see bio at bottom of release)

Interview – Contact booking at dr.marilynsingleton@gmail.com, or call Dr. Singleton directly at 510-421-5800

 

Preview:  Medical technological aids have now jumped the shark. An unbelievable, but—thanks to cell phone video—verifiably true news report detailed how a robot rolled into a patient’s Intensive Care Unit cubicle and a physician’s talking head appeared on the robot’s “face” and told the patient the sad news that he had a terminal illness. While remote medicine is reasonable in rural areas where access to medical care is limited, telling a patient he is going to die from a TV screen is a crime against all medical ethical principles.

  We can certainly expect more medicine by proxy as larger corporations and the government takes more control of our medical care

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March 19th, 2019

Doctor Robot for You, Real Doctor for Me

by Marilyn M. Singleton, MD, JDl

A couple of years ago, computer programs, algorithms, and glorified Google searches were touted as the replacements for a physician’s analysis of a patient’s medical condition. Compressed medical research is quite useful for clinicians who are presented with novel situations and have no readily available colleagues with whom to discuss the case. However, the purpose of flow charts should not be to replace the brains of busy clinicians or, worse yet, be a cookbook for the practitioners at drugstore clinics.

Medical technological aids have now jumped the shark. An unbelievable, but—thanks to cell phone video—verifiably true news report detailed how a robot rolled into a patient’s Intensive Care Unit cubicle and a physician’s talking head appeared on the robot’s “face” and told the patient the sad news that he had a terminal illness. While remote medicine is reasonable in rural areas where access to medical care is limited, telling a patient he is going to die from a TV screen is a crime against all medical ethical principles. More