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August 1, 2021AI in Germany
August 1, 2021Eric Topol
"Doctor of the Decade," Eric Topol is a world-class cardiologist, scientist, and a leading advocate of Artificial Intelligence’s role in reshaping medicine...
Eric Topol is an American Cardiologist, scientist, and famous author acclaimed for one of the most promising medicine topics, the future. He earned a degree in biomedicine at the University of Virginia in 1975, medical school at the University of Rochester, and graduated with honors in 1979.(1)
After graduation, he started an Internal Medicine residency at the University of California, San Francisco, and his Cardiovascular Medicine fellowship at Johns Hopkins University. Since then, Eric Topol has played a significant role in research, publications, and teaching. Among his extensive list of acknowledgments, the “Hutchison” Medal in 2011 awarded by the University of Rochester to alumni to recognize outstanding achievements and exceptional service to the community, state, or nation is particularly notorious.(2)
A revolutionary role in research
After several years as a Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Michigan, he became the Chairman of the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. His achievements in this institution include starting a medical school, leading the clinic to become the first center for heart care, and assuming the principal investigator role earning a 33-million-dollar grant from NIH. This grant propelled worldwide clinical trials on advanced care for heart disease.
Dr. Topol became a pioneer in the development of several routine use medications, including Plavix, Angiomax, Tissue plasminogen activator, and ReoPro, as well as genetic theories and transcriptional medicine in the susceptibility for heart attacks and individualization of care.(3)
After several years as a Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Michigan, he became the Chairman of the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. His achievements in this institution include starting a medical school, leading the clinic to become the first center for heart care, and assuming the principal investigator role earning a 33-million-dollar grant from NIH. This grant propelled worldwide clinical trials on advanced care for heart disease.
Dr. Topol became a pioneer in the development of several routine use medications, including Plavix, Angiomax, Tissue plasminogen activator, and ReoPro, as well as genetic theories and transcriptional medicine in the susceptibility for heart attacks and individualization of care.(3)
Artificial Intelligence to restore humanity
Lately, Dr. Eric Topol has incurred in artificial intelligence in medicine and its possible benefits in humanization and individualization of practice. The possibilities are endless. One of the most promising ideas is transferring data and documentation activities from physician’s daily activities to deep learning machines to increase diagnostic accuracy and, thus, devote more time to the physician-patient relationship.(3,4)
The latter also targeting burnout collaterally as a cause of physician impairment and suicide. Supportive evidence for increasing diagnostic accuracy, although far from complete, includes early detection of highly prevalent retinopathies, increased sensitivity and specificity for analyzing imaging techniques and, unified Electronic Medical Records analysis for detecting moment-relevant medical information.(4,5)
Blurry limits for progress
In an article published in Nature in 2019 about the future in deep learning within healthcare, Dr. Topol foresees that this “symbiosis” will have significant importance as a foundation for “high-performance medicine”. As such, it is expected for multiple biomedical advances to reach beyond the analysis of clinical data and achieve accurate image interpretation. For example, he discussed a growing emphasis on using this technology for genome interpretation in sick newborns, early detection of heart attacks and stroke, blindness prevention, and even outcome predictions such as inpatient risk of sepsis, risk of readmissions, and death in hospital. Deep learning processes have major significance in improving workflow, decreasing potential medical errors in the health system, and providing additional benefit to patients by enabling them to process their medical information to promote healthy life patterns.(5)
Futuristic precision in the present
Dr. Eric Topol has also excelled in the writing field by publishing three bestseller books about the future of medicine: The Creative Destruction of Medicine (2010), The Patient Will See You Now (2015), and Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again (2019). He is the leader of the Precision Medicine Initiative – All of Us program that is the most prominent research program ever to be launch in the US and was awarded a 207$ Millions grant from the NIH in 2016 with the goal to study genes sequence of 1 million Americans to enable individualized prevention and care to all citizens.(4,6)
Dr. Eric Topol has also excelled in the writing field by publishing three bestseller books about the future of medicine: The Creative Destruction of Medicine (2010), The Patient Will See You Now (2015), and Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again (2019).
He is the leader of the Precision Medicine Initiative – All of Us program that is the most prominent research program ever to be launch in the US and was awarded a 207$ Millions grant from the NIH in 2016 with the goal to study genes sequence of 1 million Americans to enable individualized prevention and care to all citizens.(4,6)
Contributions far from over
Nowadays, Dr. Topol is director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute, Chief Academic Officer of Scripps Health, Professor of genomics at the Scripps Research Institute, and co-founder of the West Wireless Health Institute in La Jolla, California, where he still practices medicine and researches actively.
In his achievements, he is Editor in chief of Medscape and has published 1100 peer-reviewed articles and more than 30 medical textbooks. He was named the most influential physician executive in the United States by Modern Healthcare in 2012, Doctor of the Decade by the Institute for Scientific Information and is considered part of the top 10 most cited healthcare researchers.(1,5)