Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again

by Eric Topol MD

Overview

A Science Friday pick for book of the year, 2019


One of America's top doctors reveals how AI will empower physicians and revolutionize patient care


Medicine has become inhuman, to disastrous effect. The doctor-patient relationship—the heart of medicine—is broken: doctors are too distracted and overwhelmed to truly connect with their patients, and medical errors and misdiagnoses abound. In Deep Medicine, leading physician Eric Topol reveals how artificial intelligence can help. AI has the potential to transform everything doctors do, from notetaking and medical scans to diagnosis and treatment, greatly cutting down the cost of medicine and reducing human mortality. By freeing physicians from the tasks that interfere with human connection, AI will create space for the real healing that takes place between a doctor who can listen and a patient who needs to be heard.


Innovative, provocative, and hopeful, Deep Medicine shows us how the awesome power of AI can make medicine better, for all the humans involved.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781541644632
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	03/12/2019
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	214,217
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.70(d)

About the Author

Eric Topol, MD, is a world-renowned cardiologist, Executive Vice-President of Scripps Research, founder of a new medical school and one of the top ten most cited medical researchers. The author of The Patient Will See You Now and The Creative Destruction of Medicine, he lives in La Jolla, CA.

Table of Contents

Foreword ix

Chapter 1 Introduction to Deep Medicine 1

Chapter 2 Shallow Medicine 23

Chapter 3 Medical Diagnosis 41

Chapter 4 The Skinny On Deep Learning 59

Chapter 5 Deep Liabilities 89

Chapter 6 Doctors and Patterns 111

Chapter 7 Clinicians Without Patterns 137

Chapter 8 Mental Health 165

Chapter 9 Al and Health Systems 183

Chapter 10 Deep Discovery 209

Chapter 11 Deep Diet 233

Chapter 12 The Virtual Medical Assistant 255

Chapter 13 Deep Empathy 283

Acknowledgments 311

Notes 313

Index 357

Editorial Reviews

Topol's argument isn't that human doctors should or will be replaced by A.I., but that there are different fields and tasks within medicine that are best approached by one or the other, or the two working together. He envisions a future where doctors and machines work symbiotically…Topol writes most effectively from his perspective as a physician, detailing actual cases and extending his caretaking sensibility to the reader.

The New York Times Book Review - Rachel Riederer

01/28/2019

Cardiologist Topol (The Patient Will See You Now) looks at how the use of artificial intelligence is changing medicine in a sometimes challenging but enlightening treatise. Central to his discussion is the conviction that the practice of medicine is in need of a paradigm shift toward doctors being better equipped to understand and empathize with their patients. Arguing that artificial intelligence could help achieve this goal, Topol explains how AI is already used in various medical specialties. He underscores its effectiveness in pattern reading, the major task of pathologists, radiologists, and dermatologists, as well as less developed uses in the mental health and surgical fields. These descriptions are amply supported with studies and graphs, though lay readers may find some of these difficult to understand. Topol also explores AI’s potential effects on health provider systems, apps that monitor patient biometrics, and the collection of health data. He concludes with an impassioned plea for doctors to use the time freed up by AI advances to get to know their patients better as people, and not just medical conundrums. Topol’s tour through AI’s present and future health applications will be of greatest interest to medical professionals, but anyone with an avid curiosity about the future of medicine will find this worthwhile. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"Dr. Topol's vision of medicine's future is optimistic. He thinks AI...is set to save time, lives and money."—The Economist

"Topol passionately and persuasively sets out the transformational potential of deep medicine."—Lancet

"[Topol's] argument for using technology to bring care back to health care is timeless."—Nature

"An optimistic vision of medicine's rapidly approaching future that should be required reading for the public and medical people alike."—Booklist

"Enlightening... Anyone with an avid curiosity about the future of medicine will find this worthwhile."—Publishers Weekly

"A gimlet-eyed look at the role of computers in medicine...A cogent argument for a more humane — and human — medicine, assisted by technology but not driven by it."—Kirkus

"Eric Topol has a unique knack for bringing us to the frontiers of medicine in his books, and this one is no exception. A compulsively readable, elegantly written, important account, Deep Medicine will fundamentally change the way you view the future of medical technologies and their impact on our lives. This book is challenging, thoughtful, and provocative. I cannot recommend it enough."—Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Emperor of All Maladies

"Healthcare offers the best opportunity for symbiotic combination of artificial intelligence and humanity. Eric Topol's book is the definitive work from someone who deeply understands both healthcare and AI. I strongly recommend the book, and hope it connects medical practitioners and AI researchers, and help them understand that only by working together, can our shared dreams of health and longevity be reached."—Kai-Fu Lee, bestselling author of AI Superpowers

"Deep Medicine is a fascinating tour of how machine learning is transforming medical research, with medical care on the horizon. Topol reminds us that as our machines get smarter and capable of taking over more of our tasks, we must become more human, and more humane, to compensate. Our most brilliant AI tools will help us learn more about ourselves—body and mind—than we can even imagine, but they cannot empathize with a patient. This book is an excellent step toward directing all that knowledge into creating a healthier society, not just healthier individuals."—Garry Kasparov, author of Deep Thinking

"The promise of Artificial Intelligence is deeply human, and its impact is only growing in industry and daily life alike. Deep Medicine is an insightful read about the incredible potential of AI and medicine, written from a refreshingly human-centered perspective. It's not only a landmark book, but the start of a truly historic conversation about the implications of this exciting technology in medicine."—Fei-Fei Li, professor of computer science at Stanford University and director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab and the Stanford Vision Lab

"Deep Medicine is an essential look at the future of AI-powered healthcare, told by one of the most exciting researchers in the field."—Andrew Ng, General Partner at AI Fund and CEO of Landing AI

From the Publisher

2019-01-13

A gimlet-eyed look at the role of computers in medicine.

Building on earlier fly-on-the-wall looks at modern healing (The Patient Will See You Now: The Future of Medicine Is in Your Hands, 2015, etc.), cardiologist Topol examines the pros and cons of putting artificial intelligence, database crunching, and the like into the service of doctors who may or may not appreciate the new powers gained and limits reached. In this, the question is one of building a body of testable data and using it wisely. As the author writes, "shallow evidence…leads to shallow medical practice, with plenty of misdiagnosis and unnecessary procedures." The data is more abundant than the meaning derived from it—by most estimates, Topol writes, doctors have collectively absorbed perhaps 5 percent of the whole literature. AI is useful for plowing through that huge body of material and weeding out the inapplicable and unlikely. AI is not, however, yet up to the "outlandish expectations," as he puts it, that some administrators—and, more to the point, cost-cutting insurers—are placing on it, from curing cancer to eliminating possible harm to patients to lessening workloads. To be sure, he notes, there are many places where an algorithm's ability to "eat data" is most welcome, as with correlating a patient's intake of fluids with his or her output of urine. Given that most Americans have their medical records scattered over many providers and insurers, it's important that data be consolidated and put in the hands of consumers. Perhaps paradoxically, notes the author, "the only way it can be made secure is to be decentralized." Another issue is the possible overreliance of doctors on data in the place of good practice, and Topol closes with the warning: "Machine medicine need not be our future."

A cogent argument for a more humane—and human—medicine, assisted by technology but not driven by it.

Kirkus Reviews