Humanism is AI-Proof with Dr. Vijay Shah

Vijay Shah MD is the Chair of the Department of Medicine and Professor of Medicine & Physiology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Dr. Shah completed his undergraduate, medical, and residency training at Northwestern University. He then pursued a fellowship in gastroenterology and hepatology at Yale University. Dr. Shah has maintained an NIH funded program at Mayo Clinic for more than 22 years, which focuses broadly on alcohol-related liver disease, and has over 200 peer-reviewed research publications. He is a member of the prestigious American Society of Clinical Investigation, and has been awarded numerous awards, including Distinguished Investigator Award at the Mayo Clinic. Artificial Intelligence is on the horizon, with hopes of driving care using data analytics, technology, and algorithms. So what impact will that have on our role as physicians in the future? Today, Dr. Vijay Shah highlights that while AI progresses, “the most beautiful niche for humans will be in their ability to be human. What makes people special is their empathy, their compassion, their ability to care and their creativity.” It is these traits that will remain “AI-proof” and best compliment the advances in AI that will gradually incorporate a lot of the knowledge and data that we rely on today. Pearls of Wisdom: 1. Resiliency. Tenacity. Power. Agility. To incorporate these words into your actions, really think about what those words mean to you. 2. There are different phases in a medical career and in each phase different things are important for us: During training, its important to be accountable. Early in careers, ambition takes precedence. Mid career, being magnanimous becomes important. Late career, becoming a visionary and acting now to make the world better takes precedence. 3. As AI becomes more a part of medicine, we may wonder what our role is as doctors. The most AI-proof quality we have is our humanism: empathy, compassion, and our ability to care. 4. Great mentees exhibit three qualities. First, have fun with your mentors. Second, show them appreciation. Finally, be accountable and deliver on the things you agreed to do.