"Hard Fork" for Family Medicine - Artificial Intelligence Will Change the Way We Experience Practice

The increasing advance of artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine will affect the future of Family Medicine in many ways. Some of the effects may be salutary, but others may infringe on the real work of family medicine/primary care. AI will change the way we experience practice. If AI can perform many current physician tasks, what will be left for the practicing human family physician? We believe that there will be several types of patient encounters that will still require the human touch that comes from established long-term continuous healing relationships between family physicians and their patients. As AI applications in primary care become more robust it will assume the function of a new member of the multi-professional healthcare team, and physicians will learn to operate in a new triad: the "doctor-patient-AI partner relationship". We explore possible further effects on the practice of family medicine under these new AI-enhanced circumstances and contemplate their impact on the current gap in primary care availability, continuity of care and the attractiveness of primary care careers. As we pass through this potential "hard fork" for family medicine we are convinced that family medicine is the most likely component of the healthcare system to survive and prosper with AI.