Kim Solez believes that as technology advances and diseases are eliminated, the role of physicians will change from healing the body to enhancing lives. Physicians will take on greater social responsibility for improving people physically, mentally, and spiritually. Medical school will also change to focus more on humanism beyond disease treatment and to educate both humans and machines. Doctors of the future will need to consider how to help transform society on a large scale through "medicine writ large."

1. MEDICINE
WRIT LARGE
HEALTH
As we begin to eliminate disease, the
role of physicians will be less about
healing people’s bodies and more about
enhancing people’s lives BY KIM SOLEZ as told to Kate Black
I
n 1848, one of the most influential pathologists in history, Rudolf Virchow,
made the oft-quoted statement that “medicine is a social science, and politics
is nothing but medicine writ large.” Virchow believed that medicine has a
responsibility that extends far beyond treating and diagnosing illness.
This is true today, as we can see that a person’s access to health care, in
many ways, determines their overall quality of life. But I predict medicine’s
influence on society is going to grow more dramatically in the coming decades.
In 2011, I pioneered, and have since taught, a University of Alberta class
called Technology and the Future of Medicine. The course queries the perils and
possibilities of medicine and asks a variety of mind-tingling questions, from “Is
evil a treatable disease?” to “Will there be medical ethics after robots take over?”
We talk about the possibility of technology wiping out the human race. But the
opposite could also happen, where technology wipes out all known disease. I believe
the second scenario is more likely, and one of the goals of my course is to prompt
discussion that helps encourage that future.
As a pathologist and professor at the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, I’ve come to
believe that the future of medicine will involve more than treating disease. Medicine
will come to radically improve and
enhance human life. Imagine what
medicine could be when we can
mend or treat everything — a future
that’s becoming more real every
day. People will not only seek to be
better physically — smarter or more
physically fit — but will also want to
be improved morally and spiritually.
Physicians, I think, will become
experts on how to help “patients”
improve on vast social levels.
Even with future advances in
technology, we will never be without
the need for human physicians. Yet
it’s nearly impossible at this point
to know which physician tasks
will be taken over by machines
because some of the tasks being
replaced in 2015 are those you would
least expect. For example, robotized
psychotherapy treatment, where
patients can speak with an engineered
“therapist” through their computer,
is becoming increasingly common.
Over the next 100 years, medical
schools will have to change. They will
need to educate both machines and
humans. Rather than taking four years
of study, medical school might take four
months or four days — or maybe four
hours, through a downloadable brain
chip. As physicians’ social responsibility
increases, I expect a different type of
person will be attracted to medical
school. It wouldn’t be surprising
to see more sociology and political
science majors than biology students
donning white coats. To prepare for
the future, I believe we have to change
how we train doctors — starting
today — to focus on a humanistic
sense that goes beyond disease.
Physicians today undertake a huge
responsibility, and I don’t think that’s
going to change. In fact, it could become
even greater. In the future, physicians
will have to ask themselves if they’re
ready to take on the responsibility of
“medicine writ large,” or as Virchow
described the doctor, to be “the natural
attorney of the poor.”
Doctors will require a humanistic
sense that goes beyond disease. There’s
no limit to what human beings might
want — and be — or to physicians’ role in
helping transfigure society. ž
Kim Solez is a physician, technofuturist,
writer and leader in pathology. In
addition to teaching Technology and
the Future of Medicine at the U of A, he
is a professor of pathology, one of the
world’s foremost kidney pathologists and
CEO of Transpath Inc. You can watch
some of the Future of Medicine classes
at youtube.com/user/KimSolez.
Since 2011, Kim Solez has been
asking students to ponder
topics like The Promise and
Perils of Nanotech, 3D Printing
and Medicine and Is Technology
Making Us Fat? in his course
Technology and the Future of
Medicine. The interdisciplinary
course considers the effects of
technology on medicine in both
the developed and developing
world. He shared with us some
of his conclusions after years
of thinking about the role of
physicians in the coming decades.
42 newtrail.ualberta.ca
the future of everything