Soon you could have a robot doctor examining patients. Thanks to an Indian-Australian, such a robot has been tested in Tasmania's North-West Regional Hospital.
Dr. Nao is a humanoid robot! He looks like a human, has arms, legs, eyes and ears. He can do most of the things that humans can do, like walking, sitting, standing, looking up people and interacting with them.
What makes Nao special is his medical skills.
Principal researcher of this project Dr. Balaji Bikshandi explains, “Nao is programmed to be a humanoid but Dr. Nao is a layer on top of a regular Nao. We have trained him to do some basic patient interaction thing as a doctor.
"He could talk to a patient, get their history and ask them to do a few actions as a part of treatment. He can express his emotions, he can empathise with the patient and in a way, there will be feeling that as if he is a real human.
"That is because we programmed or trained basic Nao into a Dr. Nao which is adding a layer of clinical skills to him.”
The idea originated from a simple thought that robots could perform as doctors only if they could empathise with the patients.
Dr. Bikshandi discussed the idea with the robot designers of Swinburne University of Melbourne.
Sharing how his idea came into culmination, Dr. Bikshandi shares, “The initial design of robots did not give much emphasis into skills of a doctor or for that matter, skills of human… the soft skills. But these newer devices like Naos, these units have abilities to interact with humans through emotions and body language, gestures and speaking appropriately.
"So I thought that we can refine such modules with the basics of medical interaction skills. And there we go. We have got Dr. Nao.”
Robots have been active in operation theatres for years now but this is the beginning of new era where robots will be examining patients as doctors.
And yet Dr. Bikshandi, who hails from the state of Tamil Nadu in India, believes that robot doctors are not going to replace human doctors.
He suggests, “He (Dr. Nao) is going to compliment. He will not be replacing anything. I think he will be filling the gap where humans (are) either over worked or what humans cannot do like remembering or identifying people, keeping information.
"There are things that machines can do better than humans. And he is a mix between machine and a human. He fills the gap.”
Dr. Nao is being tested by more than 70 medical professionals. He has undergone the same exams as human doctors pass before becoming a real doctor.
And Dr. Bikshandi is confident that his brain-child Nao will pass with flying colours.
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