Social Sustainability in Medicine : the Role of Artificial Intelligence in Future Doctor–Patient Communication. A Methodological Experiment

Social sustainability is a development alternative that focuses on preserving and sustaining opportunities and resources for future generations rather than exploiting them. In addition to resource management, it is important to emphasize the focus on human well-being, in which the provision of a healthy life is a key factor. One possible alternative to improve the quality, safety, and affordability of universal healthcare is to integrate artificial intelligence into the health system. The development of AI in healthcare has brought a paradigm shift, as big-data-driven analytics can enable AI itself to identify symptom complexities and communicate with patients. In this process, it is important to explore the attitudes of healthcare professionals towards AI-based technologies, as doctor–patient communication is moving away from authoritarianism towards partnership medicine, in which AI will be an integral part of communication. In my research, I investigate the attitudes of future doctors, i.e. medical students and doctors already in practice, towards AI by using a hybrid research method of semi-structured interviews, photo collage techniques, and a questionnaire survey. The photo collage technique, due to its projective nature, can be used to reveal the respondent’s underlying evoked memories and attitudes. The new image network (collage) can be used to model the doctor–patient–AI relationship envisioned by the doctors. The results highlight the aspect of the application of AI in medicine and point out that it is not only the capabilities of the software but the attitudes of the entire health stakeholder community that influence the uptake of innovation. The exploration of issues of authority and trust in the field provides an opportunity for the creation of educational and outreach programmes.