REVIEW of ROBODOCS

 

What your future robot-doctor may lack in warmth and bedside manner, it is likely to make up for in knowledge and accuracy, and you are likely to become as accustomed to it as you now are with the many other high-tech innovations of the 21st century.

Dr. T. "Gus" Gustafson has written a fine medical novel based in the near-future, a novel that chronicles the lives of  Hal Phillips, high school genius, Eagle Scout, MD, and his beloved eventual wife, Sarah, as they try to make medical history by establishing a successful rural American medical practice largely based on robotics and Artificial Intelligence.

This engaging novel has the feel of a memoir. Its readers are carried along with the personal stories while being introduced to the training of doctors in the present era and a decade or two to come. The detailed exposition shows the author's deep familiarity with his medical profession, and Dr. Gustafson is candid about its strengths and weaknesses, but he ends up being quite optimistic about its future.

I found his perspective convincing and share his hopes for the increased use of sophisticated technology by all those in the medical profession, while they maintain the ethos of caring and carefulness.

We needn't fear the medical technology of the future. We should embrace it, though some of the robodocs may be a bit too rigid to hug.