Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again

by Eric J. Topol

Shockingly, up to one-third of medical operations performed are unnecessary.

This is where we are today: patients exist in a world of insufficient data, insufficient time, insufficient context, and insufficient presence. Or, as I say, a world of shallow medicine.

If a doctor thought of the correct diagnosis within five minutes of seeing a patient, the accuracy was a stunning 98 percent. Without having the diagnosis in mind by five minutes, the final accuracy was only 25 percent.2

Superforecasting, Philip Tetlock observes, “If you don’t get feedback, your confidence grows much faster than your accuracy.”9