Alone, in front of an interactive screen. With three-dimensional viewers and hi-tech gloves, led by artificial intelligence, intent on moving organoids built in the laboratory within our bodies, real: Novelli Tom Cruise, which in the film Minority Report-of the distant 2002-said our robotic future with decades in advance. We are exaggerating, but not too much: the doctors will be – and already in part they are – something very different from the white cans that run in the ward with the stethoscope in the neck. According to the latest report on the future of medical and nursing professions in Italy, just released by Randstad Research, who has identified the “47 sanitized professions of the future” -including cardiac groans specialized in IA, robotic surgery engineers, technicians for 3D plates and many others -, in our hospitals a few years will serve hybrid figures that combine medicine and medicine and medicine and Bio-engineering, ethics of care and interpretation of algorithms, the infinite possibilities of artificial intelligence with the art of action “in science and consciousness” without delegating decisions to a robot.
In a country like ours – but the others are not better placed – where healthy is in trouble, money is never enough and the university is often so lacking that it cannot form even the basic doctors, the challenge is arduous. But the future approaches, here too. For example, in the case of cancer: to seek the right cure, tailor -made for each patient, futuristic creatures are already used in the search workshops of some hospitals, called phantom.
“Phantom is an” artificial replica of a human organ “, made with synthetic materials that faithfully reproduce its biomechanical properties, such as consistency and elasticity”explains Alessandro Zerbi, head of the pancreatic surgery of IRCCS Humanitas clinical institute of Rozzano (Milan). «In our case, that is, that of the pancreas, we submit small samples of the human body to engineering analysis that give us the opportunity to make 3D printed copies. On these Phantoms, which are then adapted to clinical cases, it is possible to simulate “custom” surgical interventions for each patient. For example, they allow us to understand before operating, incredibly realisticly, such as that pancreas – which varies from patient to patient and can be harder or more fragile – will react to sutures or other procedures ». The doctors of Humanitas did not do everything themselves: the results are the result of the collaboration with the engineers of the Polytechnic of Milan, with which they shared months of work to map the characteristics of the human pancreatic tissue.
It is a procedure that can be replicated with other organs, and beyond: At the Gemelli Science and Technology Park in Rome it is also possible to develop tumor organoids, three -dimensional models of the human cancer obtained from patient surgical champions. At that point the care on the copy “understanding”, understanding how he will react before subjecting the patient to treatments, perhaps invasive.
In the meantime Microsoft, according to what was declared at the beginning of July by the head of the IA division, Mustafa Suleyman, would have made “a great leap towards a superintelligence in the medical field”, creating an artificial intelligence system called Mai-Dxo, capable of replicating the work of a health team, diagnosing pathologies with an accuracy of 80 percent, against the 20th of the doctors, and reducing the costs choice to perform less expensive exams and procedures.
In front of all this, there is the frustration of us to know that the organization of university and hospitals – especially public – is not up to the challenges of the future. And the institutions try to run for cover: a few weeks ago, the Italian Federation of Health and Hospital Companies (Fiaso) has set up the first Italian Observatory on the application of artificial intelligence in public health, to monitor technological evolution. But in the meantime there is to work on the system, on the trials and on some wrong decisions taken by previous governments. «The rules with which we work today are thought about a healthcare model dating back to more than 20 years ago. But today everything has changed: infrastructures, needs, technology “says the president of Fiaso, Giovanni Migliore. “So you need the courage to review what is no longer suitable.”
The thought flies to the great flop of the 1,288 community houses, the idea of the former minister Roberto Speranza during the Conte government (approximate cost for activation: 2.8 billion euros of the PNRR), which is neither completed nor to equip doctors and nurses. “We must have the courage to change course, if necessary,” concludes Migliore. “If walls are not needed, but digital infrastructures, our decisions must be realized to reality, and even the staff must be put in the conditions of knowing how to use new tools”. Here, the painful notes: the formation of young doctors and the update of those who are already in the lane.
In a world still often dominated by university “barons”, it is not easy to understand what health is needed and let alone implement it, but finally something is changing.
In the emergency sector, for example: the Rome Medical Training Center uses the Methodology of the American Heart Association to keep practical resuscitation courses throughout Italy with advanced simulation of reality through “smart mannequins“, Which react exactly as our body would do, while at the IRCCS Policlinico in Milan we find the first center in Italy to cover the entire maternal-infantile path with advanced surgical simulations and immersive software, bringing-according to the words of the general manager Matteo Stocco-medical training in the metaverse, with didactic experiences in virtual reality.
New study paths are also born, ready to form figures that will soon be indispensable. As in the case of the master’s degree course in Health Informatics, born from the collaboration between the Vita-Salute University of San Raffaele and Polytechnic of Milan, which first in Italy forms professionals capable of integrating skills as a computer scientist with the knowledge of the health context. “We want to bring artificial intelligence to the patient’s bed,” says Professor Antonio Esposito, professor of radiology and coordinator of the course. «Our students do not work only in the laboratory or on simulated data, they are immersed in real cases, in lane: this is a revolution. We created the “Hub San Raffaele” research center, which is physically within the campus and the hospital, so we develop artificial intelligence solutions where they really need: close to patients. Here the new doctor integrates the skills of IA and the computer scientist understands how to apply them to clinical practice ».
What is certain is that all this future that runs so fast that it does not allow us to keep up, it also poses ethical problems. “Today the paradigm of the health profession revolves around three cornerstones: knowing, knowing how to do and know how to” be “, therefore have knowledge, to have manual skills, and to know how to build the human relationship”, explains Guido Bertolini, head of the Department of Research Medical Epidemiology of the Mario Negri Institute, who is carrying on, among other things, a project financed by Horizon Europe that aims to use artificial intelligence to promote artificial intelligence to promote research to in the emergency room. “All this is no longer enough: in the future the fourth pillar will be needed, that of” knowing how to know “. A second -level metacognitive knowledge, which the doctor must develop to manage the new IA technologies and be able to collaborate with them: and to dominate them with the strength of his ethics and experience ».
To succeed, for example, in the event of a diagnosis of the AI with which he did not agreeperhaps because the clinical eye tells you that you are wrong, to contest it and defend your thesis. Because the power is nothing without control. It was a spot of more than thirty years ago: today it is Arianna’s thread that must allow our doctors to never get lost in the lines of a prompt.
