Mexico City, October 30, 2023.- Within the framework of the IV Symposium on Virtual Medicine & Therapeutic Advancesheld by the School of Medicine of the School of Medicine of the Faculty of Health Sciencesheld in the auditorium of our School of Medicine. Universidad PanamericanaWe received as a special visitor Dr. Richard Satava Dr. Richard SatavaProfessor Emeritus of Surgery at the University of Washington, whom we had the opportunity to interview.
Dr. Satava's vast career speaks for itself: he was a professor of surgery at Yale University and in the Army Medical Corps, and for 12 years, he was program manager for advanced biomedical technology at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
He also served as senior science advisor at the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command at Ft. Detrick, Maryland, and as director of the NASA Commercial Space Center for Telemedicine Medical Informatics and Advanced Technology at Yale University.
Quality academic program
Throughout his career, the doctor has had the opportunity to collaborate with our university, especially with Dr. Gregorio Tomás Obrador, general director of health at Universidad Panamericana, a collaboration that he recalls "has been a great joy in my life ".
On such a memory he explains: "My favorite audience are the students and this is a wonderful university, I have been here for 15 years or more, and every time I come, I enjoy the opportunity because I learn a lot, the students are brilliant and enthusiastic (...) I have had the privilege of meeting several of the students and I have managed to keep in touch with them".
He also did not miss the opportunity to congratulate Universidad Panamericana "for the quality of the program they have put together. The most important thing that has happened to me when I come here is that I learn something every time".
Artificial intelligence in medicine
Speaking about the current applications and challenges of technological advances such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) in medicine, Satava noted, "The use of AI in healthcare, it is ubiquitous in any aspect that we do. Whether it's patient care, administrative, clinical application or surgery, it has permeated absolutely everything."
"It has been said countless times that this new AI technology is disruptive and is going to fundamentally change the way we are going to be able to provide healthcare. The challenge we have is to implement the mandatory policies so that we have reliable AI," he said.
Challenges for the scientific community
Similarly, along the same lines, he said, "When we started with computers, it was said about the quality of computers: if you put garbage in, you get garbage out. So, the quality of the data and some of the challenges we have today, is that several data sets contain erroneous information, others are not representative of the broad population, and so the database itself is incomplete because it only covers a small segment (...)".
"These are known challenges in the scientific community, who are calling for a slowdown in research until we can figure out how to address them before they get out of hand," he expounded.
Tools for medicine
However, he acknowledges that how we use the new technologies depends on us: "I have mentioned several times in my classes that technology is neither good nor bad, it is neutral and depends on how we use it(...) it all depends on how healthcare providers use the AI tools, which are nothing more than that" .
Likewise, in his opinion: "It is unlikely that we will see, at least for now, AI replacing humans, because for it to do that it would have to have consciousness and we have no idea what that is and to replace it you have to know what it is, how it works. But the future is bright if we use AI carefully, I think it's going to significantly improve the quality of healthcare services."
Finally, Dr. Satava highlighted the use of AI and machine learning in medicine: "AI is a tool that will help us to improve individual patient care, and will help hospitals to provide broad access to and quality of care for all.
Learn more about the Medicine program at: https://mkt.up.edu.mx/licenciatura-en-medicina
