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KEEVE BRODMAN, M.D.; ANDRIANUS J. van WOERKOM, Ph.D.; ALBERT J. ERDMANN, Jr., M.D.; LEO S. GOLDSTEIN, Ph.D.

AMA Arch Intern Med. 1959;103(5):776-782.

Abstract
Recognizing that machines in the practice of medicine are here to stay, physicians have the obligation to learn as much of their advantages and limitations as they can comprehend. The machine described here merely correlates symptoms set down by the patient and draws conclusions on the basis of what it has "learned" from physicians. Hence it makes the same errors as the human brain which "taught" it plus others that arc inherent in its inability to initiate the thinking process. One reviewer of the paper presented below asked this important question, "What is the character of the error when a diagnosis is made which is not correct? If a patient with flat feet is simply not so diagnosed, this is one type of error, but if the machine reads, 'respiratory tuberculosis inactive,' it's another." This and many other questions properly may arise.

At the same time, the device is an

Author Affiliations
New York

From the Department of Medicine, New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center.

Footnotes
Submitted for publication July 21, 1958.

Copies of the Cornell Medical Index-Health Questionnaire may be obtained from the authors, The New York Hospital, 525 E. 68th St. (21).

The work described in this paper was done under a contract, Research Grant RG-4742, between the U. S. Public Health Service and Cornell University.

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