• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

33 Charts

  • About
    • What is 33 Charts?
    • Bryan Vartabedian MD
  • Blog
  • 33mail
  • Foci
    • Social/Public Media
    • Physicians
    • Patients
    • Hospitals
    • Information
    • Process/Flow
    • Technology
    • Digital culture
    • Future Medicine
  • The Public Physician
Future Medicine

Why Vinod Khosla is Right

September 8, 2012 By Bryan Vartabedian · Reading Time: 2 minutes

Recently Vinod Khosla, founder of Sun Microsystems, keynoted Rock Health’s Health Innovation Summit where he offered a bleak outlook on the future of the MD.  David Shaywitz at Forbes has some interesting commentary that’s worth a peek.  Davis Liu and Venture Beat’s Matt Marshall offered nice reviews.  Khosla’s Techcrunch piece, Do We Need Doctors or Algorithms, is required reading for anyone with a lens on the future.

Khosla’s recent views on medicine were best summarized by Shaywitz and are as follows (not verbatim):

  1. Medicine needs disruption.
  2. Entrepreneurs focused on consumers are most likely to disrupt.
  3. Since doctors are part of the system that is the problem, they’re not likely to create the solutions.
  4. In the near future, computer algorithms may well replace doctors (80%).

Despite predictable indignation from the medical community, Khosla’s vision isn’t far off the mark. Much of what we once did with our eyes, ears and hands will be replaced by diagnostic and predictive technology.  This is already happening.  The older generation doesn’t want to believe it.  The millennials don’t know anything else.  I might add, however, that I prefer to position the physician’s future as marked by radical redefinition rather than outright displacement.

I do have issue with the growing belief that physicians lack the capacity to participate in shaping or envisioning the future of health.  Our profession is undergoing what may be its most dramatic change in modern history.  I’m confident that a new generation of medical leaders will emerge that will counter current assumptions about doctors and change.

Khosla’s a remarkable guy with some provocative ideas.  I regret that I wasn’t in the Rock Health audience when he challenged physicians to counter his assertions – not because I disagree but because this subject is in need of visible dialog.  My greater regret is that his challenge was met with silence.

And that tells me either everyone’s on board with Vinod Khosla, or there’s truly no hope for our future.

Related Articles

  • Why Social Media for Doctors Doesn't Make Sense
  • Why You Should Attend Stanford Medicine X | Ed
  • Why Content Creation is Important for Doctors

Tagged With: Future

Related Articles

  • Why Social Media for Doctors Doesn't Make Sense
  • Why You Should Attend Stanford Medicine X | Ed
  • Why Content Creation is Important for Doctors

Primary Sidebar

Bryan Vartabedian, MD

Bryan Vartabedian, MD
Bryan Vartabedian is the Chief Pediatrics Officer at Texas Children’s Hospital North Austin and one of health care’s influential
voices on technology & medicine.
Learn More

Popular Articles

  • The Fate of Fired Cleveland Clinic Resident Lara Kollab
  • Cures Act Final Rule – How It Will Change Medicine
  • 12 Things About Doximity You Probably Didn’t Know
  • Should Physicians Give Their Cell Phone Number to Patients?
  • Doximity Dialer Video – Telemedicine’s Latest Power Player

Sign up for 33mail newsletter

Featured Articles

The Case for New Physician Literacies in the Digital Age

Reactive and Creative Spaces

Yes, Doctor

Doctors and the Endemic Culture of Permission

100,000 Connected Lemmings

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Footer

What is 33 Charts?

With a mashup of curated and original content that crosses the spaces of digital health, media, communication, technology, patient experience, digital culture, and the humanities, 33 charts offers unique insight and analysis on the changing face of medicine.

Founded in 2009 as a center of community and thought leadership for the issues doctors face in a digital world, 33 charts was included in the National Library of Medicine permanent web archive in 2014.
Learn More

Foci

  • Digital culture
  • Digital Health
  • EHR/Health IT
  • Future Medicine
  • Hospitals
  • Information
  • Patients
  • Physicians
  • Process/Flow
  • Quality
  • Social/Public Media
  • Technology

Copyright © 2023 · 33 Charts · Privacy Policy