BBC Learnings · Section 3

A future without doctors_

Hi, Neil from BBC Learning English here. Did you know that we're now offering a new weekly extra episode of 6 Minute English exclusively on our website?

Level: B1 · 66 sentences

Transcript

1. Hi, Neil from BBC Learning English here.
2. Did you know that we're now offering a new weekly extra episode of 6 Minute English exclusively on our website?
3. So, go to bbclearningenglish.com to find your favourite presenters on your favourite programme.
4. The extra episodes are only available on our website bbclearningenglish.com.
5. See you there! Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English.
6. I'm Neil. And I'm Sam.
7. Are you feeling well, Sam?
8. No headache or sore throat?
9. No, I feel fine. Thanks, Neil.
10. Why do you ask? Well, I've been reading some inspirational stories about the doctors and nurses fighting Covid.
11. When I was a boy, I always dreamed of becoming a doctor.
12. Ah, I see. Have you ever been in hospital?
13. Yes, I have. And I remember the nurse's bedside manner – you know, the kind and caring way that doctors and nurses treat people who are ill.
14. Nowadays, more and more of the jobs that humans do are being carried out by machines.
15. But I doubt that a doctor's bedside manner could easily be replaced by a robot.
16. In this programme, we'll be discussing whether the revolution in artificial intelligence – often shortened to AI – could replace human doctors and nurses.
17. We'll be asking, can you imagine a future without doctors?
18. In fact, machines are already doing some of the jobs traditionally done by doctors – scanning people's bodies to detect skin cancer, for example.
19. Yes, that's true, Sam, and it links to my quiz question, which is about human skin.
20. It's a well-known fact that skin is the human body's largest organ.
21. But how much skin does the average adult have?
22. Is it a Of course, our skin gets loose as we age, but I can't believe there's three square metres of it.
23. I'll say the answer is A – two square metres.
24. OK, we'll find out if that's correct later.
25. Every year in the UK, over five million people are treated for skin cancer.
26. Catch it early and your chances of survival are increased.
27. Usually a skin specialist or dermatologist will examine your skin using a hand-held microscope.
28. But in 2017, a team of researchers at Stanford Medical School made an exciting announcement.
29. Here's Oxford University researcher Daniel Suskind telling BBC World Service programme The Big Idea what the medics at Stanford had invented.
30. The team of researchers at Stanford last year announced the development of a system that if you give it a photo of a freckle, it can tell you as accurately as 21 leading dermatologists whether or not that freckle is cancerous.
31. The Stanford medical team had invented an AI system to analyse freckles, small brown spots found on people's skin, especially on pale skin.
32. As it turned out, the AI programme was better than doctors, telling whether a freckle was harmless or cancerous, connected to some type of cancer.
33. So it seems that artificial intelligence is already replacing humans when it comes to detecting cancer and doing a better job of it.
34. But Daniel Susskind isn't convinced.
35. One reason is that AI systems still need humans to programme them.
36. And as it turns out, knowing exactly how doctors detect illness remains something of a mystery.
37. Here's Daniel Susskind again in conversation with BBC World Service programme The Big Idea.
38. If you ask a doctor how it is they make a diagnosis, they might be able to point you to particularly revealing parts of a reference book or give you a few rules of thumb, but ultimately they'd struggle.
39. They'd say, again, it requires things like creativity and judgment, and these things are very difficult to articulate.
40. And so traditionally it's been thought very hard to automate.
41. If a human being can't explain how they do these special things, where on earth do we begin in writing instructions for a machine to follow?
42. Most doctors find it difficult to explain how they make a diagnosis.
43. Their judgment about what someone's particular sickness is made by examining them.
44. Diagnosing someone's illness is complicated, but there are some rules of thumb.
45. A rule of thumb is a practical but approximate way of doing something.
46. For example, when cooking, a good rule of thumb is two portions of water to one portion of rice.
47. Exactly. And because identifying sickness is so difficult, Daniel says, where on earth do we begin writing instructions for a machine?
48. We use phrases like where, how or what on earth to show feelings like anger, surprise or disbelief.
49. I might show surprise by asking Sam, how on earth did you know the answer to that?
50. Aha! I guess you're talking about your quiz question, Neil.
51. And you didn't be so surprised.
52. I'm naturally brainy. Of course you are.
53. In my quiz question, I asked Sam how much skin there is on an adult human body.
54. And I said it was A, two square metres.
55. Which was the correct answer.
56. With your brains, I think you'd make a good doctor, Sam.
57. and I'm sure you'd have a good bedside manner too.
58. Ah, you mean the kind and caring way that doctors and nurses treat their patients.
59. OK, let's recap the rest of the vocabulary, starting with freckle – a small brown spot on someone's skin.
60. Freckles are usually harmless, but some skin spots can be cancerous – connected to cancer.
61. A doctor's diagnosis is their judgement about what someone's particular sickness or disease is.
62. A rule of thumb is a useful but approximate way of doing or measuring something.
63. And finally, we use phrases like where on earth as a way to show emotions like anger, surprise or disbelief.
64. That's all for this programme, but join us for the next edition of 6 Minute English when we'll discuss another trending topic and the related vocabulary.
65. Why on earth would you miss it?
66. Goodbye for now. Goodbye. 6 Minute English from the BBC.