Is AI a threat to healthcare jobs?
FRESNO, Calif.— A recent study from Harvard Business School shares that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will replace jobs that are based on repetitive skills. However, it can be used to improve jobs that are technical, analytical, and creative.
AI capabilities advance every day, which can be considered a help or a hindrance to the job market.
Dr. Robert Mitchell is the Director of Medical Services at Fresno State’s Student Health and Counseling Center (SHCC) and is responsible for supervising a team of 20 staff members and ensuring smooth operations. This is a task that requires a high level of communication and being a people person.
“Often what I have to do is sometimes read between the lines and figure out where people are coming from, and help support them,” Mitchell said.
While the center does use AI for tasks such as note-taking and documentation, Mitchell believes that AI only serves as a supplement to healthcare.
“I think as time progresses, it may be integrated at different levels that it had not previously been in before, but I think it’ll be a component of the equation, and not the entire equation,” Mitchell said.
Dr. Etisha Wilbon is the Director of Counseling and Psychological Services at the SHCC. The counseling team provides multiple services to students in individual and group settings.
“We try to use a lot of different modalities to ensure that we are meeting the needs of all of our students,” Wilbon said.
Wilbon, as well as the other clinicians in the office, needs a strong skill set to do their jobs. It begins with formal training in school.
“The minimum skillset actually needed is a Master’s in Social Work, Professional Clinical Counseling or Marriage and Family Therapy,” Wilbon said. “Making sure that we have compassion and empathy, as well as having the clinical, theoretical approaches that can be beneficial to the students.”
The American Medical Association reported that between 2023 and 2024, AI use jumped the most in documentation, notes, and research summaries.
Mitchell believes that an accurate diagnosis requires a physical examination. AI estimates what could be wrong based on what a person tells it, but has no information on what must be further assessed.
“For example, the abdomen and abdominal pain differentiating between an acute abdomen and someone who has an upset stomach,“ Mitchell said. “Well, that, you know, from an examiner’s point of view, that incorporates different modalities of touch and eliciting such things as rebound, which gives you an idea of what’s going on with the abdomen, which cannot be fully elicited from a patient just by typing something in.”
Wilbon shares a similar opinion regarding counseling.
“We do see a lot of people using it for their clinical diagnoses,” Wilbon said. “They’re using it for their own behavior management. And while some of those tools can be beneficial, some of those tools are also extremely misleading. And the one thing we do know about AI is it’s learning as more information comes in, and that kind of takes the human aspect out of it. But also that opens it up for errors.”
AI can compile a lot of information, but at this point, it is unable to fully understand the nuances of the human body and mind. Therefore, it remains a tool in a doctor’s toolbox and cannot replace their personal touch.