Johnson & Johnson may have pulled the plug on its anesthesia robot, Sedasys, as a result of pushback from human doctors, but the fear of increasing automation and robotization of healthcare is leaving many physicians and other providers questioning what will remain for them to do within their specialties.
Maybe nothing. Maybe a lot.
But it doesn’t matter, because it’s really the wrong question to ask about your future.
That’s because that first question, “what will be left for me to do?” is based on the assumption that your specific set of job duties/responsibilities would continue to into the future. As a result, the envisioned real-world deviation from the assumption triggers a sense of loss, a sense of fear.
So, for example, the coming of the Sedasys machine, aimed squarely at the market for anesthesia in connection with colonoscopies, caused anesthesiologists and CRNAs to fear that they would be cut out of the picture in connection with those procedures and then maybe more.
For those providers, the picture’s changed due to the demise of that machine. (That is, until the next one is “born.”)
But it’s likely that, for providers of all sorts, physicians, advanced practice nurses, and so on, automation, robotization and other technological advances will displace your current “scope of practice” from the practical standpoint. In other words, at some point in the not-too-distant future, “X-ologists” will no longer be performing such-and-such procedure or such-and-such task. A machine or a pill will.
The right question to ask is what underlies your profession, your specialty, or its role. What’s the motivating desire or overriding function?
For example, for an orthopedic surgeon, the answer might be “aiding patients in connection with orthopedic injuries.” How then can you arrange your practice now and in the future to best survive and even thrive in light of both anticipated and unanticipated changes?
Continuing with the example of an orthopedic surgeon, from the higher vantage point I suggest, many are looking at their role as much broader than simply as surgeons: How can they create practice entities, educational entities, facilities (including ASCs) all wrapped around the hub notion of preventing/diagnosing/treating orthopedic injuries? In that context, even if a machine comes along that can do, say, hand surgery, they’ll have an active role including, very likely, owning the facility in which the procedure is performed.
What underlies your profession or specialty? What underlies your desires? What’s your overriding professional function? Answer that and we’ll build your future around it.
