Tutorial 1 – Introductions
Last night’s tutorial was really interesting. Having come into it with a degree of apprehension (I’m definitely one for working to a mark scheme), at the end of it I felt much more comfortable with what is expected.
I think the points on artificial intelligence were interesting; in my own field of respiratory medicine we definitely have situations where AI could significantly remove the burden on our radiologists (simple pulmonary nodule surveillance as a key example). However there are some conditions (interstitial lung disease particularly) where things are never clear cut and require human experience to come up with a consensus opinion. I think it comes back to the old phrase, ‘medicine is an art, not a science’.
Another course member and I share some opinions on the use of technology and the learning environment. I think it’s so important as a medical student and beyond to know what you’re doing when you put your hand on a patient. Yes, there are clever stethoscopes that can play back heart and lung sounds, and we can ping each other pictures of funny rashes etc, but there’s still so much to be gained from tactile physical examination – how much technology can augment or even replace that is a real debate.
We brought up learning platforms as a source of frustration and this led into the discussion about bespoke technology. Interestingly, I had a conversation earlier this week with our IT service team about how to autotrigger a doctor review for unwell patients. The guy assumed we could have the alert sent to Teams because everyone in the trust has a login… You could see his face fall when we explained that we are still users of the humble ‘bleep’ or pager. It’s fascinating the spectrum of technology that’s in use in the NHS right now. Although COVID has brought about some good changes there are some fundamentals of our practice that are positively archaic – but I guess if as a whole we don’t perceive them as broke, why try to fix them?
For the assignment, I think I’m going to have a bit of a dig around the use of smartphones and cognitive function – as Tim has already said in his blog post, I think it’s complicated, but should make for an interesting presentation (I hope!).
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Thanks Ellie! Great post. On the importance of touch, I wonder if this paper on ‘body pedagogics’ might interest you. It is co-authored by Rachel Ellaway who recorded one of the interviews with Michael on professionalism (I think!)
Kelly, M., Ellaway, R., Scherpbier, A., King, N., & Dornan, T. (2019). Body pedagogics: embodied learning for the health professions. Medical Education, 53(10), 967–977.
Hey, Ellie, Your post triggered all sorts of thoughts and reflections for me – the reminder of medicine as art rather than science (where, I wonder, might we explore the border between those territories? Can we define the place of ‘art’ that is the most ‘human’ space in the profession/craft of medicine?
I found myself thinking, also, about AI. It is my understanding that AI broadly works on the premise of comparing new information with what it already has logged, and as it consumes more and more information its responses are modified/enhanced/enriched/tweaked by the ever increasing body of experience it has been exposed to. This is somewhat analogous to professional practice. My *provocation* here would be – can we imagine a time when an AI system with an internationally acquired log of cases amounting to hundreds of thousands, all recoverable in a fraction of a second, can be considered more trustworthy – or less risk-worthy than an individual expert drawing on personal experience, and an increasingly cluttered and fallible grasp of professional literature, international research and emerging tech?
Every medical professional has a robust appreciation for the value of laying a hand on a patient. The physical connection is at the heart of the job. I think perhaps the big potential of educational technology, however, is that it can assist with the transfer of the mass of knowledge and experiences that *inform* the direct patient encounter. It has become somewhat of a cliche – but it is still a useful illustration to consider the “Sully” analogy. That man knew how to safely land a failing – and rapidly falling – jet plane on a river. He had no previous experience of doing that – but regular virtual simulation activities, scripted and unscripted, played a vital role in enabling him to piece together that various aspects of knowledge, experience and insight to bring the plane safely down.
I have absolutely no doubt you will unearth some fascinating stuff for your proposed assignment topic!