AI Potential In Medicine Is Unlimited

Posted on | January 7, 2026 | 5 Comments

Mike Magee

If you are wondering whether AI will take over the role of doctors in America, you may be surprised to learn that the numbers are going in the reverse direction.

A month ago, David J. Shorten MD, CEO of the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) proudly announced that “The growing number of applicants to medical school reflects the continued strong interest in medicine as a career.” And the numbers back him up. For the first time, over 100,000 students are already in Medical Schools across the U.S., and that number was about to increase by 1.3%.

One would think that American university students with an interest in Medicine, facing the uncertainties in the field, would be seeking out other options. Instead 2026 applications were up over 5%.  This should not be surprising since history has demonstrated that periods of rapid advance in technology, communication, mobility, and innovation have always been the friend of the profession. Still change is never easy.

In 1851, on its fourth birthday, the AMA was almost ready to give up their quest for legitimacy. The results of their commissioned 1851 survey of 12,400 men from the eight leading U.S. colleges was shocking. The best and the brightest clearly were chasing other professions. There it was in black and white. Of those surveyed, 26% planned to pursue the clergy, 26% the law, and less than 8% medicine.

It wasn’t that doctors with training (roughly 10% of those calling themselves “doctor” at the time) lacked influence. They had been influential since the birth of the nation. Four signers of the Declaration of Independence were physicians – Benjamin Rush, Josiah Bartlett, Lyman Hall, and Mathew Thorton. Twenty-six others were attendees at the Continental Congress. But making a living as a physician, that was a different story.

During the first half of the 19th century, the market for doctoring went from bad to worse. Economic conditions throughout a largely rural nation encouraged independent self-reliance and self-help. The politics of the day were economically liberal and anti-elitist, which meant that state legislatures refused to impose regulations or grant licensing power to legitimate state medical societies. Absent these controls, proprietary “irregular medical schools” spawned all manner of “doctors” explaining why 40,000 individuals competed for patients by 1850 – up from 5000 (of which only 300 had degrees) in 1790.

 The legitimate doctors in those early days saw 5 patients on a good day. Horse travel on poor roads, and the absence of remote systems for communication, meant doctors had to be summoned in person to attend a birth or injury. And patients lost a day’s work to travel all the way to town for a visit of questionable worth. The direct and indirect costs for both doctor and patient were unsustainable. As a result, most doctors had multiple careers to augment their income.

At the turn of the century, in 1800, only 6% of Americans lived in towns with a population of 2,500. With westward expansion, Manifest Destiny, forced relocation of native Americans, and slavery supported cotton and tobacco, that percentage reached only 15% by 1850. But the arrival of railroads and telegraph, canals, improved roads and steamboats transformed America. 

By 1890, 37% lived in cities. And that included doctors. Beginning in 1870, there was an exodus of doctors to cities in excess of the general population. In 1870, there were 177 doctors per 100,000 in large cities. By 1910 the number had grown to 241 per 100,000.

Congregating doctors in cities was a mixed blessing for the profession. It made contact easier to execute, allowing numbers of patients seen in a day to double and triple. But it also meant that more doctors (of widely different quality) would be competing for the relatively few patients who possessed the resources to pay fees for services.

The invention of the telephone was equally transformative. The first recorded local telephone network was in New Haven, CT in 1877. Soon after the Capitol Hill Drugstore in Hartford, CT, was linked to 21 local physicians. Not to be outdone, two years later, Dr. William Worrell Mayo connected his farmhouse in Rochester, Minnesota to the Geisinger and Newton drugstore in town. This made remote prescribing, as well as patient communications for emergencies and scheduling possible.

In modern times, the arrival of the Internet was equally transformative. But adding AI to the mix changes everything for the profession which is fundamentally scientific and fact-based, but relies on human trust, fostered by compassion, understanding and partnership, to ensure its premier role in society. In threading that needle, AI will service the profession in three critical ways:

1. AI is a problem solver. From new discoveries, to accurate diagnosis, to business efficiencies, to team connectivity, to lessening opportunity for human error, AI is a performance enhancer.
2. AI empowers patients by providing access to information, research, and inclusion in professional care teams, providing rapid feedback and opportunity to enhance mutual team partnerships.
3. AI has the potential to create and support a wide array of public health initiatives, and trigger policy changes that may finally convince independent minded Americans that universal health coverage is not a luxury, but a necessity.

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