Surgeons and truck drivers may soon have something in common

Climbing into the future Many Americans feel economically insecure.  Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have latched on to these feelings, and both fault free trade agreements for stripping the country of good, steady jobs. Trade agreements are a convenient scapegoat, but the big threat to jobs is technology, not trade. Over the past decades, technology has reduced the need for labor in many fields. Robots can perform repetitive, manual work like welding cars. Enterprise software and databases have replaced paralegals and bookkeepers. Computers can answer the phone and provide customer service. As great as these dislocations have been, much bigger change is on the horizon. For example, there are more than 3 million professional truck drivers in the US; the industry pays pretty well, especially for a job that doesn’t require a college education. But often lost in the discussion of driverless cars is the concept of driverless trucks. It might take 10 or even 20 years, but driverless trucks will eventually be the norm, lowering costs while putting millions of truck drivers out of work. (Driverless cars will throw all the Uber drivers out of work as well.) Believe it or not, surgeons face a similar threat. Surgeons have long used robotic tools to assist them, but historically the tools relied on surgeons’ manual skills. That’s changing, even for challenging procedures. A new study demonstrates that robots can be used for soft tissue surgeries, even thoug...
Source: Health Business Blog - Category: Health Management Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs