Neelix: I feel like I’m all alone.
The Doctor: You *are* all alone. I’m only a holographic projection.

- Star Trek Voyager

The advent of technology has created efficiencies and remarkable tools allowing us to diagnose and treat all manner of health problems like never before.

Human nature and the reductionist agenda of efficiency-driven health bureaucrats and capitalists will always look to automation to improve productivity, reduce errors and costs. So is there a place for doctors in the brave new world of technology driven health care?

If science fiction is any indication we will either be looked after in the future of healthcare by robots or computer-generated holograms.

If the role of doctors is merely to process informational inputs and communicating and executing algorithmic outputs then I suspect it is game over. In the early days of chess playing computers, Grand Masters boasted that computers would never defeat the best human opponents and for the best part of three decades they were proved correct. The first crack emerged however, in 1996 when IBM’s Deep Blue computer defeated the then reigning World Champion Garry Kasparov.

The “gestalt” or gut feel so highly prized by human physicians born out of the human brain’s incredible ability for pattern recognition is still a function of complex and numerous neural connections. So it is only a matter of time that the complex diagnostic algorithms and numerous evidenced-based guidelines associated with healthcare will be mastered by technology.

Our ability to execute treatments has already been met by robot-driven surgery and there has been much talk of nanotechnology bots being used for targeted therapy. So in light of all this, what then, if any, will be the role of human doctors?

I believe that the future of human doctors will be to act as the soft, user interface of technologically driven tools. You see the answer to our question lies not in the potential of the technology but rather the preferences of the patient. For the same reason people hate automated telephone systems when they have a problem or complaint there is still something comforting in dealing with another human being. In times when the medical odds are stacked against us we are looking for discretion and not rigid protocols. We want warmth, compassion, hope and optimism; qualities not currently widely associated with “technology” or at least not yet anyway!

At the end of the day human beings are a social species and in times of distress, dis-ease and dis-comfort no one wants to feel alone even if you have access to the best technology can offer.