Great news from technology's perspective. At the same time scary if this will lead machines taking care of healthcare or if it will lead "Human Doctors" to use their brain less and less and rely more and more on Supercomputer.
In general it is okay to take more and more help of technology in these critical care type of issues. At the same time it is humans who need to be driver seat. Machines can only rely on past issues and past diagnosis. Nobody can replace human intuition, which on top of all the hard work and studies, make a doctor great. Our computing capability is still not there yet, at least in my view..
Also, it is possible that this project is over emphasized for marketing reasons. In reality, it could be at the most helper to doctors in diagnosis. However, there is great chance that doctors may start relying more and more on this instead of using their own mind.
IBM’s supercomputer may someday be ‘Dr. Watson’
Medical training to include residency at famed cancer center
By Jim Fitzgerald
Associated Press
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — The medical training of IBM’s speedy Watson computer will continue with a residency at a renowned Manhattan cancer hospital.
International Business Machines and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center said Thursday that they will add the latest in oncology research — and the hospital’s accumulated experience — to Watson’s vast knowledge base, and keep updating it.
The result should help the hospital diagnose and treat cancer more quickly, accurately and personally, they said.
“The capabilities are enormous,” said Dr. Larry Norton, deputy chief for breast cancer programs at Sloan-Kettering. “And unlike my medical students, Watson doesn’t forget anything.”
Watson won fame by beating the world’s best “Jeopardy” players. Applying its speed and language skills to medicine was a longtime goal at IBM, and Watson went to work last year for health insurer Well-Point.
The training at Sloan-Kettering will take time, and it may be the end of next year before patients at the hospital are benefiting from Watson’s speed and depth, said Dr. Martin Kohn, chief medical scientist at IBM. If successful, the finished product could be used anywhere in the world to aid cancer treatment.
Kohn said there’s a rule of thumb that it takes 15 years for breakthroughs in medicine to be disseminated around the world.
“So any process that can help get valuable information about choices and treatment out into general use more rapidly obviously is an improvement,” he said.
IBM said it was still focused on the project’s development and was undecided about how to market it. It said both IBM and the hospital had invested in the plan but would not disclose specifics.
Watson will be fed textbooks, medical journals and — with permission — individual medical records. Then it will be tested with more and more complicated cancer scenarios and assessed with the help of an advisory panel, Kohn said. It’s expected to speedily suggest diagnoses and recommend treatments, ranking several alternatives.
The computer’s grasp of the scientific literature — and its ability to find the right passage in seconds — will help doctors keep up with the ever-expanding amount of available information, the doctors said.
But Norton said it’s the patient records at Sloan-Kettering — with plain-language notations that Watson can understand — that will add “wisdom” to what the computer learns.
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES
IBM’s Watson will be fed textbooks, medical journals and even individual medical records, and be tested with increasingly complicated cancer scenarios.
In general it is okay to take more and more help of technology in these critical care type of issues. At the same time it is humans who need to be driver seat. Machines can only rely on past issues and past diagnosis. Nobody can replace human intuition, which on top of all the hard work and studies, make a doctor great. Our computing capability is still not there yet, at least in my view..
Also, it is possible that this project is over emphasized for marketing reasons. In reality, it could be at the most helper to doctors in diagnosis. However, there is great chance that doctors may start relying more and more on this instead of using their own mind.
IBM’s supercomputer may someday be ‘Dr. Watson’
Medical training to include residency at famed cancer center
By Jim Fitzgerald
Associated Press
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — The medical training of IBM’s speedy Watson computer will continue with a residency at a renowned Manhattan cancer hospital.
International Business Machines and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center said Thursday that they will add the latest in oncology research — and the hospital’s accumulated experience — to Watson’s vast knowledge base, and keep updating it.
The result should help the hospital diagnose and treat cancer more quickly, accurately and personally, they said.
“The capabilities are enormous,” said Dr. Larry Norton, deputy chief for breast cancer programs at Sloan-Kettering. “And unlike my medical students, Watson doesn’t forget anything.”
Watson won fame by beating the world’s best “Jeopardy” players. Applying its speed and language skills to medicine was a longtime goal at IBM, and Watson went to work last year for health insurer Well-Point.
The training at Sloan-Kettering will take time, and it may be the end of next year before patients at the hospital are benefiting from Watson’s speed and depth, said Dr. Martin Kohn, chief medical scientist at IBM. If successful, the finished product could be used anywhere in the world to aid cancer treatment.
Kohn said there’s a rule of thumb that it takes 15 years for breakthroughs in medicine to be disseminated around the world.
“So any process that can help get valuable information about choices and treatment out into general use more rapidly obviously is an improvement,” he said.
IBM said it was still focused on the project’s development and was undecided about how to market it. It said both IBM and the hospital had invested in the plan but would not disclose specifics.
Watson will be fed textbooks, medical journals and — with permission — individual medical records. Then it will be tested with more and more complicated cancer scenarios and assessed with the help of an advisory panel, Kohn said. It’s expected to speedily suggest diagnoses and recommend treatments, ranking several alternatives.
The computer’s grasp of the scientific literature — and its ability to find the right passage in seconds — will help doctors keep up with the ever-expanding amount of available information, the doctors said.
But Norton said it’s the patient records at Sloan-Kettering — with plain-language notations that Watson can understand — that will add “wisdom” to what the computer learns.
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES
IBM’s Watson will be fed textbooks, medical journals and even individual medical records, and be tested with increasingly complicated cancer scenarios.
No comments:
Post a Comment