Posted on: Mon 27-01-2025

Medical experts have asserted that realising the full potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in medicine hinged on equipping medical professionals with the necessary knowledge and skills to effectively integrate AI into both education and clinical practice, thereby enhancing efficiency and improving patient outcomes.

Speaking as a Guest lecturer at the College of Medicine, University of Lagos’s 8th Felix Oladejo Dosekun Memorial Lecture, Chief Executive Officer of Elshcon Group, Dr. Emi Membere- Otaji acknowledged that by enhancing diagnostic precision, optimising treatment, and protocols, and improving patient outcomes, AI is already making significant impacts in human lives but cannot achieve full potentials until professional ma are well equipped.

In the lecture entitled: “Medical Curriculum and Artificial Intelligence: The Meeting Point and Path to Follow” to honour the late Professor Felix Oladejo Dosekun, Membere-Otaji said despite the already crowded Core Curriculum and Minimum Academic Standards (CCMAS) training curriculum in Nigeria, the importance of AI in the training of medical personnel cannot be overemphasised.

The medical doctor turned entrepreneur said: “There are numerous challenges at various stages of training and practice for medical professionals. Medical students face the burden of numerous textbooks, frequent exams, and clinical learning at the bedside. Resident doctors deal with preparing for rounds bedside learning thesis preparation, core studies, and academic activities.”

Membere-Otaji said the Fourth Industrial Revolution AI has come to be part of man’s daily life, impacting him in almost every sphere of life.

Membere-Otaji, said: “The intersection between the medical curriculum and AI is now clearly obvious in the training of medical and dental professionals, as well as in the practice of medicine.

This integration can only become more precise and expansive in the future.

“AI will be the norm rather than the exception. Man and machine, working together in collaboration, to enhance both medical training and practice for greater efficiency and improved outcomes.”

In his address, the Provost, College of Medicine, University of Lagos, Prof. Ademola Oremosu urged medical professionals to maximise the limitless opportunities of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

He said a surgeon in Nigeria could operate on a patient in the United States through the aid of AI.

“We are in an age where you cannot ignore AI. We can’t stay behind the rest of the world. We now have human knowledge being transferred to machines.

“We now use machines to get things done faster. Machines can process information that will take humans time to process.

Today, there is AI, the Internet of Things, robotics, and driverless cars.”

Speaking, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Lagos, Prof. Folashade Ogunsola, who was represented by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Development Services), Prof. Ayodele Atsenuwa, asserted that the technology has come to stay.

SOURCE: VANGUARD NEWSPAPER

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