* This is a partial quote from an article in the Korea Ilbo.
https://v.daum.net/v/20260219043149984
https://www.hankookilbo.com/news/article/A2026021816160003540
A, a public health professional working in the emergency room of a general hospital outside the capital, turns on ChatGPT, a paid generative AI model, when he is on night or holiday duty. When there are patients outside his specialty and he is alone without other specialists or superiors, it can be difficult to make judgments about the situation. A said, "When I have to decide whether to admit a patient based on their symptoms, I double-check the principle criteria with ChatGPT." He pays a monthly fee of $20 (about 29,000 won) and hires a colleague.
According to a survey, one out of two doctors in Korea are using AI for actual medical tasks such as disease diagnosis and analysis of test results. However, many doctors are hesitant to use it because it is unclear who should be held responsible if there is a misdiagnosis or other problems, and to what extent they should inform patients about the use of AI.
These results are included in a report on 'Research on the Impact and Response of AI Introduction in the Medical Field' by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, which the Korea Ilbo obtained through the office of Rep. Kim Yoon of the Democratic Party of Korea on the 18th. The research team conducted a survey of 2,125 doctors nationwide from October 16 to 21 last year. As a result, the proportion of doctors who are actually using AI for medical tasks reached 47.7%. This is the first time that the government has conducted a large-scale survey to understand the current status of AI use by doctors.
Doctors mainly used AI in disease diagnosis (68.0%·multiple responses) and screening (51.2%·patient severity classification). There were also a significant number of doctors who reported using it for △treatment (33.4%) △patient follow-up observation (24.1%) △simplification of administrative tasks (23.5%) △prognosis prediction (20%).
Looking at the departments, more than one out of two doctors in radiology (52.4%) were using AI, showing the highest utilization rate. This is because AI technology for reading medical images such as computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has already been developed and widely used in actual clinical settings. In addition, cardiologists (27.3%), endocrinologists (10.7%) who treat diabetes and thyroid diseases, and dermatologists (6.6%) were also relatively actively using AI.
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