Recently, I spoke with a high school student who is interested in becoming a physician. I observed that the practice of medicine has changed a great deal over my career, which has spanned four decades. I expected that the practice would change even more rapidly over the coming decades because of political and financial influences, as well as further innovations in technology and artificial intelligence.
I told the student that when I began my medical career, the practice of medicine involved making diagnoses and prescribing treatment based on what we were taught in medical school, continued medical education, our clinical experience, and sometimes through a comprehensive review of the medical literature regarding medically complex patients.
When I started practicing in the 1980s, physicians who worked in hospitals had ample time to interact with hospitalized patients (e.g., half........