The chatbot will see you now: is this the future of Irish medicine? |
Have you tried visiting your GP lately? Where once you could pop into your family doctor without an appointment, slots in GP clinics can book up many days ahead. And that’s if you have a doctor locally.
Recent research on staffing shows a wave of retirement could leave some parts of Ireland without a single GP. Areas in east Clare, east Mayo, Inishowen and around Wexford and Westmeath – affecting tens of thousands of patients – are most vulnerable.
More GP training places have been created – the number is up 80 per cent in Ireland between 2019 and 2024 – but we still seem to be playing catch-up. Is there another possible solution?
Northern Ireland researcher Charlotte Blease has been exploring the role artificial intelligence could play in future medical services. Author of one of this year’s most mind-shifting reads, Dr Bot: Why Doctors Can Fail Us – and How AI Could Save Lives (Yale), Blease is not a medical doctor – her PhD is in philosophy – but she has worked extensively with medical professionals in areas from placebo studies to psychotherapy ethics.
Facing facts that many of us would rather not think about it, she is this........