In the AI^2 March 2023 edition (TL;DR – four clinicians discussing the challenges and opportunities for data science and AI in their specialties).

This session was split into two halves:

1. Lt Col Oliver Bartels, serving officer in the Royal Army medical corp from James Cook University Hospital, enlightened us on problems existing in the frontline, including environmental factors, connectivity/communication limitations, and the widespread usage of paper health records. Lt Col Bartels also discussed opportunities for AI in this field, such as optimising logistics, adapting voice recognition for noisy environments, and improving triage.
2. We had a panel of four clinicians working in the digital space: Lt Col Oliver Bartels (anaesthetist), Dr Jonathan Batty (cardiologist), Dr Katie Allen (pathologist), and Dr Allan Pang (anaesthetist). These passionate doctors have all (in different ways) taken to the world of data science to try to solve real health problems in their fields. The clinicians discussed their own work and their ambitions for the future, with a focus on the reality of converting AI prototypes into tools with real-world utility.

Ideas for development and food for thought: • There exists many different models for AI diagnosis of specific conditions (e.g. benign/malignant mole detection, symptom severity scorers), however we need to start thinking about how to integrate multiple classification tasks into one device or even one piece of lightweight software. • GUIs need to be developed for situations where looking at a screen could mean life or death. • If a task is repetitive and time-consuming, can it be automated? What’s the human impact of the changed workflow?

We leave you with the wise words of Lt Col Bartels when considering the impact of PhD research within the wider research context - you must build many small Lego structures before you can build the entire Millennium Falcon!

Blog written by: Zoe Hancox