Posted on 07/16/2020 12:18:59 PM PDT by ransomnote
The daily email that arrived in physician Samantha Wang’s inbox at 8 a.m., just before morning rounds, contained a list of names and a warning: These patients are at high risk of dying within the next year.
One name that turned up again and again belonged to a man in his 40s, who had been admitted to Stanford University’s hospital the previous month with a serious viral respiratory infection. He was still much too ill to go home, but Wang was a bit surprised that the email had flagged him among her patients least likely to be alive in a year’s time.
This list of names was generated by a machine, an algorithm that had reached its conclusions by scanning the patients’ medical records. The email was meant as something of a nudge, to encourage Wang to broach a delicate conversation with her patient about his goals, values, and wishes for his care should his condition worsen.
It left her pondering: Why him? And should she heed the suggestion to have that talk?
Those kinds of questions are increasingly cropping up among clinicians at the handful of hospitals and clinics around the country deploying cutting-edge artificial intelligence models in palliative care. The tools spit out cold actuarial calculations to spur clinicians to ask seriously ill patients some of the most intimate and deeply human questions: What are your most important goals if you get sicker? What abilities are so central to your life that you can’t imagine living without them? And if your health declines, how much are you willing to go through in exchange for the possibility of more time?
MORE AT LINK
See? There’s no death panels. It’s just a death program!
Sounds like End-of-Life is being switched to Ending-Life.
With commies in charge, this will not go well.
“here’s one thing that almost never gets brought up in these conversations: the fact that the discussion was prompted, at least in part, by an AI. Researchers and clinicians say they have good reasons for not mentioning it.”
In other words, the process begins with a lie and deception. The physician initiates the most serious conversation about a patient’s heath, literally a life and death issue, violating the trust inherent in the doctor patient relationship.
If there is no trustworthiness in the relationship, how can the physician provide objective counsel and advice? The physician cannot.
Today it is an AI message to the physician. Tomorrow it will be the government asking if the physician spoke to the patient. The day after the government bureaucrat will want a report on the details of the conversation. Two days later the government bureaucrat will be telling the physician to recommend “voluntary” euthanasia.
The slippery slope will only continue. Ten years later the AI program will simply set a date for compulsory euthanasia and the patient will be told to report to a government center for processing. Why even have the doctor involved?
*SHIVERS*
I’ve recently gotten into reading Science Fiction, and between Issac Asimov and Blake Crouch, I am MORE than convinced that we ALL need to save a bullet for ourselves.
So many evil practices in medicine these days; too many people playing ‘god’ with others’ lives. :(
After caring for my Dad the past 15 years, we ALL need to advocate for our old and/or infirm. I was a PEST who everyone knew at his care facility. Please do the same if you have a family member or friend in a care situation. Make sure staff and owners know you are watching them.
Yeah, I sound like a Karen, but having witnessed it all first hand, call me what you will. :)
My father, who died at 95, made clear that he didn’t want extreme measures. When the doctor proposed a stint and said what the odds were he would not survive, dad asked what they would do if his heart stopped on the table. The doctor said he was required at that point to use extreme measures. My dad gave a definite no.
The importance is that the doctor, who heard dad say this, kept asking every family member who showed up for permission to use extreme measures. When we wouldn’t do it, he took dad off liquids as a way to force us to do it. When we told my dad’s personal doctor, he said, yes, he knew that doctor and he was an ass.
My father, who died at 95, made clear that he didn’t want extreme measures. When the doctor proposed a stint and said what the odds were he would not survive, dad asked what they would do if his heart stopped on the table. The doctor said he was required at that point to use extreme measures. My dad gave a definite no.
The importance is that the doctor, who heard dad say this, kept asking every family member who showed up for permission to use extreme measures. When we wouldn’t do it, he took dad off liquids as a way to force us to do it. When we told my dad’s personal doctor, he said, yes, he knew that doctor and he was an ass.
*SHIVERS*
I’ve recently gotten into reading Science Fiction, and between Issac Asimov and Blake Crouch, I am MORE than convinced that we ALL need to save a bullet for ourselves.
So many evil practices in medicine these days; too many people playing ‘god’ with others’ lives. :(
After caring for my Dad the past 15 years, we ALL need to advocate for our old and/or infirm. I was a PEST who everyone knew at his care facility. Please do the same if you have a family member or friend in a care situation. Make sure staff and owners know you are watching them.
Yeah, I sound like a Karen, but having witnessed it all first hand, call me what you will. :)
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You don’t sound like a pest; you sound like a dedicated loving daughter.
When advocating for my grandmother (her doctors, the thieving “care givers” living in her home), I became so physically exhausted that I was too tired to speak to friends, family, businesses etc. And I only did that for the last 8 months of her life. I honor your 15 years of dedication!!!
Thank you! The first DECADE was the hardest, while he was living only 2 minutes from me. I finally had to say; ‘Keep a list of things you need and what you want me to do for you this week. You can have me on Thursdays and unless I’m taking you to the hospital, and that’s IT!’
Give a man an inch, LOL!
He then moved to Assisted Living, which was OK, but he had deteriorated a lot by then, then on to a nursing facility, which was a very good one, thanks to my legwork of investigating many of them in the area.
thanks to my legwork of investigating many of them in the area
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Another grueling feat you accomplished! I watched my friend find a GOOD care facility for her mother - amazing what it took!
Luckily, I’ll be able to go into the Veterans Home up in Chippewa Falls, WI if/when the time comes. I have a friend who is a banker and pulled together the financing for the project. (Also a Veteran.)
He assured me that my room has a southern exposure, a view of the Prairie, a mini-bar and a private bath WITH hot tub.
Heck, that’s more than I have at home right now, LOL! ;)
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