There is a scene in the 2016 film Hidden Figures where – against the backdrop of racism and sexism in civil rights era United States – African-American mathematician Dorothy Vaughan comes across a manual for the IBM, a new mechanical computer that will revolutionize the work she and a group of women employed as human ‘computers’ had been doing at NASA in the early 1960s. In the film, Vaughan channels her energy into preparing her colleagues for the impending computer revolution. When the jobs of human computers are set for elimination, her colleagues are prepared to take on new roles as computer programmers.

We are at a Dorothy Vaughan moment in health care: new technologies are completely changing the scope of practice for many specialties and professions. Artificial intelligence systems are getting better and better at pattern recognition and already we’ve seen that they can detect and diagnose things like skin lesions as well as humans can. Deep learning and automation are being implemented into radiation therapy for cancer patients to bring the treatment planning process from hours down to minutes. Advances such as these bode well for patients. Quicker and more accurate diagnoses and treatments mean better outcomes. But what does this mean for the health care professional?

As I wrote for Medical Education, an estimated 47% of our jobs will be transformed with the emergence of automation and artificial intelligence. Although it’s easy to resort to the panic that humans are being replaced by machines, it is important to ask ourselves: how can we be prepared for the future of this changing context?

With the emergence of disruptive technologies that will no doubt transform the jobs of many, many people in health care, it begs the question: what is the role of humans in high-quality, compassionate care? What will humans be doing that machines can’t – at least for now?

The answer might be simple: we need to focus on the skills and abilities that are uniquely human.

This brings me to metacognition, the awareness of our own learning and thinking processes. As we move into an environment where more and more knowledge is held and analyzed in computer-based systems, I think one of the most important things we can be doing is thinking about thinking. We can observe our own minds and how they’re working; observe artificial intelligence and how it’s working; and observe our colleagues and how they’re interacting. This is extremely important for safety, and it may be the future of medical education.

A focus on areas like metacognition and other higher human cognitive functions will help to facilitate human-machine interactions and collaborations. New skills will be required do things like meld human psychomotor skills with machine guidance. Greater emphasis will be placed on compassion and maintaining a human presence in all interactions, including those between machines and humans.

As we think about compassionate care and disruptive technologies, it might be helpful not to think about futuristic artificial intelligence and automation at all, but the computer many of us have on our desks. (As we know, this machine was once a disruptive technology.) I’m sure we’ve all been in a doctor’s office where our doctor has had to turn their backs to us to type their notes. To what degree does that technology foster quality communication, or interfere or hurt the extension of compassion and caring?

Perhaps a more compassionate solution would be to sit with a patient, using a device like a tablet instead – fundamentally the same technology as a computer, but one that allows patients and providers to sit next to each other, share information and talk to one another.

As we prepare for a future where artificial intelligence and automation transform health care, it’s up to us as educators to prepare our students without losing sight of the human aspects of health care delivery. A hand on the shoulder, a reassuring word and a non-judging ear provide the compassionate foundation necessary for the ‘care’ in health care. After all, without human compassion, there is no health care.

This blog post appears as part of the Big Ideas Lecture Series for the Research Institute of Health Care Education. Big Ideas explores simulation, artificial intelligence, telesimulation and e-health innovation, among others. The series brings together experts to share insights into emerging issues and trends, to advance understanding of issues affecting health care education, research, practice and society, and to support the research and work produced at the Research Institute of Health Care Education.

For more information about the Big Ideas Lecture Series, contact researchinstitute@michener.ca.

This blog post was written in collaboration with Brianne Tulk, Communications Advisor at The Michener Institute of Education at UHN.