Watson Vs. House M.D.
February 16, 2011 Leave a comment
Could Watson may be more than just a game show contestant? IBM thinks so.
“Watson, within seconds, will be able to search all recent medical research information and help the doctor make that [diagnosis] and perhaps most importantly, recommend the best practice in the world for that patient at that second.”
This got me thinking—what would the ramifications of this be for our beloved Dr. Gregory House?
Think of all misdiagnoses and wrong treatments that nearly kill every single one of House’s patients. This could all potentially be avoided.
Imagine House sitting at a table humiliating his staff and ordering them to break into someone’s house and treat their dying patient for cancer, then lupus, then sarcoidosis, then some vague desease simply referred to as “autoimmune,” before realizing it’s almost never any of those things even though they always guess them first, and finally having the correct diagnosis revealed to him, unwittingly, by Wilson.
Now imagine instead of underlings and Wilson down the hall, he has a terminal in his office linked to Watson. He punches in the symptoms and history of his patient and in seconds Watson speaks the correct diagnosis: “What is AIDS?”
So maybe there are a few kinks to work out, but you can see my point—poor Dr. House suddenly finds himself with a boring job, a seven minute television program, and way fewer epiphanic moments.
