Robot anesthesiologist may replace $348k job in US hospitals
May 20
posted by Michael Smith in
Futurist
| 0 Comments
Robot anesthesiologist iControl-RP has been tested with 250 patients in operations. It
- controls the dose of anesthetic to put patient under
- monitor ECG brain activity to adjust dose during operation so you neither wake up or die in middle from the drugs
From Washington Post article:
Anesthesia is tricky. It’s often compared to flying a plane – keeping a patient hovering in just the right plane of consciousness. It’s called depth of hypnosis. Surgeons don’t want patients writhing on the table. And patients don’t want to be aware of the operation. Of course, no one wants patients to die, a distinct possibility if too much of an anesthesia drug is delivered.
The iControl-RP aims to thread that needle by using an EEG to scan a patient’s brain waves to make sure the sedation is adequate. And it looks at heart and breathing rates and blood oxygen levels to make sure the patient is not slipping too deeply into sleep. The machine’s algorithm makes all the medical decisions that a doctor usually does.
Ansermino said anesthesiologists are not very good at maintaining just the right amount of sedation. This is especially important in children, where studies show that deep sedation can have negative longterm cognitive impacts on infants and toddlers.
One early role for the machine, they say, could be in war zones or remote areas where an anesthesiologist is unavailable.
Hhmmm median expected annual pay for a typical Physician - Anesthesiology in the United States is $347,991 (source). These are not entry level jobs being replaced by automation. This is part of many jobs being affected by robots and early form AI...
