Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again

by Eric Topol

Overview

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:	9781541644649
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	03/12/2019
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	400
File size:	15 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Dr. Eric Topol is the executive vice president and a professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research, the largest nonprofit biomedical institute in the United States. He is also founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute and a practicing cardiologist. He is one of the top ten most cited researchers in medicine, known for his groundbreaking studies on AI in medicine, genomics, and digitized clinical trials. He was named to the Time 100 Health list of the most influential people in health in 2024. Dr. Topol writes the Substack newsletter Ground Truths and is the author of The Creative Destruction of Medicine, The Patient Will See You Now, and Super Agers.

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

"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