As a medical student, your primary focus will be on the current day; what techniques we currently use and how you will be able to do your job effectively today. However, understanding how things might change is also important, as you’ll hopefully be living and working through some major innovations in medicine.
In this guide, I’ll be telling you about the popular topic of ‘The Future of Medicine’ – specifically in the context of medical school interviews.
Written by Rozh Akram
What Is The Future of Medicine
I personally was asked this question in two of my interviews back in 2022. In both, I focused on Cancer Treatments, Personalised Medicine and the use of AI technology.
I will now talk to you about each of these topics, as I firmly believe they are even more relevant than ever and offer interesting talking points for your interview:
AI in Medicine:
Artificial Intelligence (AI) could revolutionise the field of medicine due to its human–like intelligence, allowing for instant diagnosis and imaging analysis. Right now, AI systems are used in identifying cancers, heart diseases and rare genetic diseases. The use of AI algorithms could allow for improved accuracy, speeding up the diagnosis as well as reducing human error.
With that being said, the issues with AI at the moment are ethical and technical limitations. Ethically, it concerns people how their data is being analysed and some people find it somewhat demoralising to have their details analysed by a computer. This is even more significant when it comes to vulnerability and ill health.
Beyond that, there’s the ever-growing fear that AI will be taking away jobs from humans in the medical field. While many roles will be irreplaceable due to the necessity of human attributes, there is certainly potential for more analytical roles to become redundant. This issue becomes more serious when suggesting the idea that AI could make more efficient decisions than humans in some scenarios.
Lastly, we need to consider that AI still isn’t at the point where it can be solely relied on for many roles. While technology has advanced to become reliable in some areas, human consideration is still (and may always be) required to make the best choices.
AI Genetic Analysis
An illustrative example of AI in genetic analysis is the work conducted by Genomics England with its deep learning algorithms applied to whole-genome sequencing data. In the context of the 100,000 Genomes Project, AI models analyse extensive genetic datasets to identify mutations linked to rare diseases and cancer. This technology has proven effective in discovering previously unrecognised genetic variants associated with conditions such as cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy.
By detecting subtle patterns and relationships within the genome that traditional methods might miss, AI enhances diagnostic accuracy and helps in tailoring personalised treatment plans. This advancement not only accelerates the identification of genetic disorders but also improves the precision of diagnoses, thereby offering a significant leap forward in the field of genetic medicine.
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Personalised Medicine
Personalised Medicine is the idea that medicines and treatments will be specifically made and tailored towards an individual’s genetic profile, maximising effectiveness as well as reducing side effects and any desirable reactions.
Whole genome sequencing (WGS) provides a comprehensive view of an individual’s entire genetic code, revealing detailed information about their DNA and identifying both common and rare genetic variants. This technology is transformative for personalised medicine as it allows healthcare providers to tailor treatments based on a patient’s unique genetic profile.
By uncovering specific genetic mutations that may affect disease risk or drug responses, WGS enables more precise and individualised treatment plans. This shift from generalised treatments to ones that account for a person’s unique genetic makeup can enhance treatment efficacy and minimise adverse effects, making medical interventions more effective and targeted.
Risks of Personalised Medicine
While this has plenty of pros, we also need to consider the cost that could come from this. The expense of creating customised treatments and medication would no doubt be greater than the cost of mass production. This cost would likely be passed down to the patient or the NHS, which is already struggling with tight funding.
As well as this, the potential for logistical and organisational failures is greater, with patients potentially being at risk of receiving the wrong variant of their medication.
Future of Cancer Treatment:
The future of cancer treatment is set to be revolutionised by several key advancements, particularly in personalised medicine and immunotherapy.
As genomic profiling becomes more refined, treatments will increasingly be tailored to the individual, targeting the specific genetic mutations driving a person’s cancer. This approach not only enhances the effectiveness of treatment but also minimises side effects by focusing on the cancer cells while sparing healthy tissue.
Immunotherapy, which uses the body’s immune system to combat cancer, is also expanding, with therapies like CAR T-cell treatment and checkpoint inhibitors looking promising across a wider range of cancers.
In addition to these, technological innovations like liquid biopsies and AI will all play crucial roles. Liquid biopsies, which detect cancer biomarkers in blood, will enable earlier diagnosis and real-time monitoring of treatment progress, leading to more timely and targeted interventions.
Meanwhile, AI and big data will help analyse complex patient data, aiding in the development of personalised treatment plans and predicting patient responses to therapies. Together, these advancements point to a future where cancer treatment is more precise, personalised and effective.
Other Topics About The Future Of Medicine
These are the topics I focused on in my interviews, but there are plenty more discussion points that you may be more interested in. These include:
- The Future of the NHS: Will the NHS continue to exist in the UK or will everything go private?
- The Impacts of COVID-19: We’re still trying to wrap our heads around what happened, and how the situation was handled will definitely influence how we do medicine in the future.
- Identity Politics in Medicine: Will the rules of medicine become more or less in favour of those with differing genders and sexualities?
- Environmental Impacts on Public Health: Is the decline of air and water quality going to have a major impact on the health of our society?
- Ethical Issues in Medicine: Topics like Abortion and Euthanasia are constantly being discussed from a legal and ethical standpoint. How will these discussions develop?
- Smoke-Free Generation: Many countries are trying to pass laws to create the first “some-free generation”. Will this work and how will it impact medical services?
These are mostly smaller topics that may not explore the future of medicine as a whole, but the important thing this that you have an opinion on where things may be heading.
Discussing the Future of Medicine In Your Interview
Here is a model answer from when I was preparing for my interviews. Use this as inspiration for discussing what you want to talk about in your interview relating to the future of medicine and research advancements:
Example Medicine Interview Question
Tell me about some recent research you have read into.
For this question, these were the notes I wrote down when I was preparing so I knew what to talk about if this question came up:
- CAR-T Cell therapy
- Chimeric Antigen Receptors
- Take T-cells from a patient, genetically modify them in vitro
- Now patient’s immune system (T cells) are able to detect tumour cells and destroy them- preventing cancer from progressing
- Currently approved Yescarta and Kimrayah for Blood Cancer only
- This has so much potential- especially if we could expand the scope of cancers it can treat, it could change the world as cancer is one of the leading causes of death and over 166, 000 die each year from it.
Model Answer
I recently read about CAR-T Cell Therapy, a blood cancer treatment that is a form of personalised medicine. It’s used to treat Large B-cell lymphoma and CD-19–expressing malignant and normal cells. UCL (University College London) was actually involved in this trial and there is a documentary on BBC that is about this research from UCL called War in Blood.
What I found is that they take T-cells from a patient suffering blood cancer and then genetically modify them in vitro at a lab. the enhanced T cells are then inserted back into the patient’s blood. These T cells now have chimeric antigen receptors, which drastically enhances the T cell’s recognition of blood cancer. When they do, they will attack them and destroy them. Preventing the cancer from metastasising and spreading.
CAR-T cell therapy is actually approved by two providers at the moment, Yescarta and Kimrayah, Kimrayah is more targeted towards paediatrics and young adults whereas Yescarta is targeted at adults.
It would be revolutionary if we could adapt this method to expand its scope to other types of cancer in the body. Cancer is one of the leading causes of death in the world and with the ageing population that we’ve got right now, it’s becoming more of a biological inevitability and I do think over the next few decades we will be seeing more and more rises in cancer patients.
By doing this, we would be able to increase the quality of life of patients and families who suffer from cancer, and we would be able to give everyone a longer time to spend with their family and their loved ones.
Please note that some of the info in this model answer is outdated as I wrote this in 2021. However, the point of this is to demonstrate what an effective answer to this question looks like. I’d recommend talking about the topic you’re most interested in, as long as it’s relevant to medicine and offers interesting discussion points.
With that in mind, that concludes our guide to the Future of Medicine. It’s an extremely broad topic, so be sure to expand your horizons and discover things you didn’t know before. If you’d like to learn about more medicine interview questions (including 240 potential ones that our tutors encountered), be sure to check out our free Interview Guides.
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Best of luck!
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