Re: [ba-unrev-talk] augmented medical diagnosis
Facinating, Jack! Truly fascinating. (01)
Many long years ago, I had a simple program called, I believe, "Doctor" that
ran on my Atari. It did ask questions - as I recall (in fact, I may still have
it somewhere). Maybe somene got the idea from the Rose/Park effort, who knows. (02)
But the really fascinating thing, aside from its medical value, is the coupler
that links directly to the literature. This makes the entire available
literature the DKR, and I presume, the entire WWW a DKR. Or another way of
looking at it, Weed's Problem Knowledge Coupler is an "applied search engine." (03)
What and how long will it take to see the PKC applied to all knowledge? For
example, when might citizens use PKC to readily arrive at sound decisions as to
what policies and causes and adocacy groups and which "leaders" to support,
etc. It seems to me that here is a tremendous enhancement of democracy in the
offing. (04)
Henry (05)
Jack Park wrote: (06)
> http://www.boston.com/globe/magazine/2002/0714/coverstory.htm
>
> "A computer program that provides vast amounts of information for
> diagnosing and treating patients could revolutionize the practice of
> medicine. So why won't physicians use it? "
>
> For me, seeing an article on Dr. Lawrence Weed is of great
> interest. That's because, in 1985, I formed a partnership with Dr. John
> Rose and we build a medical expert system (first built on an Apple II in
> Forth, later migrated to IBM PC in Forth and to Mac, under StaxPert written
> by our new partner Dan Wood (StaxPert being an inference engine for
> HyperCard). While doing our "competitive benchmarking", we discovered Dr.
> Weed's PKC -- Problem Knowledge Coupler.
>
> Our product was first named "First Opinion" and later recast to a more
> generalized "DOC" Decisions On Computers.
>
> Here's more from the page about Weed's PKC:
>
> "Cross has a trick, an unusual tool he sometimes pulls out of his virtual
> black bag. The tool is not a stethoscope, which amplifies his ability to
> hear a heartbeat, or an MRI, which makes up for his inability to see
> through flesh. Instead, it is a piece of computer software that makes up
> for the limits of the human brain. The software, called the Problem
> Knowledge Coupler (PKC), was conceived by an old Vermont friend of his, Dr.
> Lawrence L. Weed. Instead of listing the symptoms of a disease and asking a
> doctor to choose the closest fit, as some medical Web sites do, Weed's
> program asks a doctor to first answer a long list of questions about the
> patient's troubles. Then, up comes the most likely diagnoses and ways to
> test them out. The program helps doctors match (or "couple") the patterns
> of a patient's problems with the relevant knowledge that exists, perhaps
> buried deep in a textbook or journal article, to recognize and treat those
> problems."
>
> Now, is that an augmentation system, or what?
>
> Jack (07)