[Intl_DxMedPhys] FW: Diagnostic Physics work and AI

[Saleh Hamdan]

Forwarded from the old listserv from 3/24/25:

Thanks, Mary Ellen, for posing this interesting question.

I am not too concerned as a medical physicist doing QC about being replaced by AI anytime soon. That is because, among other aspects of our duties, we are an independent check on a process that should nominally already be working properly. For example, if a radiograph is ordered with a certain technique (kVp, mAs, etc.), part of my work is to independently ensure that the radiograph unit is doing what it says it is doing. The unit can have 70 kVp selected, but I provide an independent measurement that the tube potential is in fact at 70 kVp.

Suppose we can design a QC Bot that does what I do to ensure that a unit does what it says it's doing. Then what will ensure that the QC Bot does what it says it's doing? Ultimately, it will be a human, preferably a medical physicist.

Now perhaps QC Bots may be more efficient at doing QC than medical physicists, thus not requiring 1 medical physicist QC for every QC Bot QC. Further suppose that creating and maintaining a QC Bot will be economical relative to the amount of QC efficiency gained. Combining these two possibilities (more efficient QC and less costly procurement/maintenance) will likely result in less of a need for medical physicists doing QC. For example, a QC Bot would be procured that could do QC on a 1000 units per year, and a medical physicist would only need to do QC once a year on that one QC Bot, significantly reducing the need for QC medical physicist hours.

We could imagine a QC Bot to be an independent set of sensors attached or brought to units in a clinic and a set of programs that are automatically executed. But how confident are we that the rate of failure for these independent sensors is less than the rate of failure of the units, thus allowing us to do a lesser amount of QC on the sensors than the amount of QC that we currently do on the units? Could these sensors be shared by units so that we need less of them and consequently less maintenance and physicist QC on the sensors? I have not investigated this problem, but these are questions that would come up if we are to be replaced by QC Bots.

I have not heard of any QC Bot that could potentially be more economical than hiring QC physicists and that could potentially pass regulatory hurdles demonstrating that it could be relied upon under certain conditions that would require less physicists. That is one reason why I am not concerned of being rendered useless with regards to QC anytime soon.

If I did hear of such a QC Bot, I would still not be concerned, since medical physicists do more than QC (which I understand that you recognize). We would have more time to pursue creative tasks such as research (potentially on QC Bots and their maintenance)... assuming, of course, that we do not end up in a deep underground city called Zion fighting for our independence from said AI machines that are trying to harvest the energy produced from our brains while plugging us into some Matrix (for the record, I am not at all concerned about such scenarios).

Regards,
Saleh Hamdan, PhD
Medical Physics Resident
Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging
Yale University School of Medicine



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Date:    Sun, 23 Mar 2025 19:09:21 +0000
From:    Mary Ellen Jafari <MaryEllen.Jafari at KP.ORG>
Subject: Diagnostic Physics work and AI

Hello Listmembers, the recent discussion over the new CMS eCQM on Excessive Radiation Dose or Inadequate Image Quality for Diagnostic CT made me think there could be a shift coming in the role of diagnostic medical physicists

The "bread and butter" of work done by many diagnostic medical physicists, and certainly consultants, is testing imaging equipment for compliance with regulatory requirement and accreditation standards.  Could thistesting be replaced by using a combination of AI applied to clinical images and remote access by the vendor to monitor imaging equipment?  Our vendors already can "remote in" to do diagnostics and monitor equipment performance.

Vendors would like this because they could charge for the service and more deeply embed their customers with their products.  Employers would like it because they could potentially employ fewer physicists.  I'm not saying it would be either a good thing or a bad thing, change is always happening and is something we need to consider thoughtfully.

Is this something other list members could see potentially happening?

Mary Ellen

Mary Ellen Jafari, MS, DABR (D,N), MRSE, MRSO, FACR, FAAPM, CIIP
Chief Physicist and Regional Radiation Safety Officer

Kaiser Permanente
Southern California Permanente Medical Group
Medical Imaging Technology and Informatics
199 S. Los Robles Ave., Pasadena CA 91101
626-430-1231 (office mobile)
Maryellen.Jafari at kp.org
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