The Medical Futurist on what’s possible in healthcare.
Highlights:
- Dr. Bertalan Meskó emphasizes that multiple futures exist, and we have the power to shape them rather than passively waiting for them to unfold.
- While AI is expected to play a significant role in medicine, its ability to replicate human empathy and moral judgment—key aspects of patient care, remains uncertain.
- Digital health technologies, wearable devices, and AI are democratizing medical knowledge, shifting medicine from a paternalistic model to a participatory one.
- Meskó advocates for the use of established futures methods, like forecasting and the futures wheel, to anticipate trends and guide decision-making in healthcare.
- The ultimate goal of medical innovation should not just be technological progress but ensuring that future healthcare professionals have the time and space to practice compassionate, empathetic medicine.
“Will artificial intelligence replace me?” I ask my 2054 self. Sebastián, now 61 years old, responds with an unsettling certainty. “AI definitely plays a bigger role.” His answer makes me think, and I get goosebumps. It’s strange, as I’m not used to interviewing myself, let alone my future self. Can I call this a psychological exercise, a game, or rather an opportunity to confirm whether, in fact, my head will end up looking like a knee in the future?
The first and most important thing, is we have to acknowledge the importance of having discussions with our future selves. My future self can be tomorrow, five years from now, or even ten.
Bertalan Meskó
The simulation is called Future You, an MIT-developed AI that lets you talk to your future self. “The first and most important thing,” says Bertalan Meskó, the doctor who has made the future his specialty, “is we have to acknowledge the importance of having discussions with our future selves. My future self can be tomorrow, five years from now, or even ten.”
We connected to talk (or rather, to dream) about possible futures in the world of medicine. It’s morning in Mexico and late afternoon in Hungary, where Bertalan lives. His voice is calm, carrying the confidence of someone accustomed to discussing the future. “Usually when I tell people that multiple futures exist, they look at me in a puzzled way. (They ask) ‘What are you talking about?’” he says. There isn’t a single, fixed future. “So when they ask me what the future of this or that pharma company, or medical technology, or medical specialty, or therapeutical area is, I always ask back, ‘Which future would you like me to predict?’”
The curiosity that defines a scientist isn’t new to him. Science fiction, with its reflections on the future, has always been part of his life. Since childhood, he has been fascinated by books and movies in the genre, with characters like Neo from The Matrix and Marty McFly from Back to the Future.
I still think it’s very important to say out loud that the future is not coming at me, but I am the one impacting my own and my own communities’, societies’, even humanity’s future. All of us have a say in that.
Bertalan Meskó
“At the age of six, I decided that I would love to dedicate my life to becoming a researcher.” At the time, he didn’t know exactly what that meant. But that dream led him to medical school, drawn by genomics and life sciences. In his final year at the University of Debrecen, he began working in the biochemistry and genomics lab as part of his PhD, and his path diverged. It wasn’t the traditional lab work that captured him, but technology. His lifelong fascination. He enjoyed experimenting with different devices, even using them to monitor his own health and lifestyle. Today, that’s part of his work. “So it was not something new to me to look at the evolution of advanced technologies and try to predict what is happening next,” he emphasizes. “I still think it’s very important to say out loud that the future is not coming at me, but I am the one impacting my own and my own communities’, societies’, even humanity’s future. All of us have a say in that.”
I started building the medical futurist brand about 15 years ago.
Bertalan Meskó
Since then, Meskó has devoted himself to studying digital technologies applied to healthcare. “The only thing that was clear is that there were a bunch of digital health gadgets, wearable sensors, portable diagnostic devices, artificial intelligence. All these were on the table, and it was an interesting experience analyzing their trajectory into the future.” With this mission, he founded The Medical Futurist, a platform that integrates research, publications, and consulting to explore how these technologies are shaping the future of medicine. “I started building the medical futurist brand about 15 years ago.” When The Medical Futurist began, we were already in the middle of a cultural transformation. Today, it’s deeper, so much so that we can’t go back. And that’s a good thing.
A doctor flips through a patient’s lab results, ready to explain the next steps for managing dry mouth and eyes. But before she can speak, the patient says: “I think I have Sjögren’s syndrome. The symptoms match, and my results reinforce it.” For centuries, a scene like this would have been unthinkable. The ivory tower of medicine is crumbling. In fact, I’d say it’s practically in ruins, along with the 2,000-year-old hierarchy that placed doctors as the sole gatekeepers of medical knowledge. Medicine is now participatory rather than paternalistic. The internet, global supply chains, and health gadgets have empowered patients, turning them into active participants in decisions about their health. “The only thing I know is that this culture of transformation we call digital health comes with a lot of technologies,” Meskó explains.
The 1960s marked the consolidation of future studies with thinkers like Herman Kahn and Bertrand de Jouvenel. This interdisciplinary field analyzes social and technological progress to understand how our way of life might change. “There are many, I think more than 50, established futures methods through which anyone can learn how to observe potential futures,” Dr. Meskó states. In his new book, Your Map to the Future, he explains how to use tools such as forecasting, the ability to anticipate trends based on data, and the futures wheel, which helps explore the consequences of changes.
By analyzing these futures, it’s possible to develop what is known as anticipatory awareness, a mindset that allows us to consciously prepare for what’s ahead. “Analyzing what kind of futures can be ahead of me, I start having an impact because I want to help direct today’s reality towards that desired future,” he explains.
If you ask any patient or physician whether they want AI to replace physicians, I think the vast majority will keep on saying, even a decade from now, ‘that’s not what we want to achieve.’
Bertalan Meskó
Returning to the question I asked my 2054 self, one of the most debated scenarios is AI’s impact on medicine. What if it replaces us? For Meskó, the question is more philosophical than technical. Do we actually want AI to replace doctors? “I don’t think so,” he asserts. “Patients need empathy, and they can only get it from people they trust, and usually, they don’t trust technological entities.” Medicine is also art and humanity. It requires empathy, moral judgment, and the ability to understand suffering. Moravec’s paradox reminds us that while AI can replace repetitive tasks, human interactions are incredibly valuable and difficult to replicate. “If you ask any patient or physician whether they want AI to replace physicians, I think the vast majority will keep on saying, even a decade from now, ‘that’s not what we want to achieve.'”
Given this outlook, balancing optimism (or pessimism) with realism and ensuring that healthcare professionals are prepared for the future is a priority. “A good leader would use, I think, established futures methods to get an objective, clear picture about where that technology could head into the future.” It’s essential to analyze its impact, positive, negative, even utopian or dystopian, on patients’ lives and the role of healthcare professionals within hospitals. Through training, doctors learn to use these technologies, and they also become empowered to educate patients on their use. What is undeniable today is that AI will not replace doctors, but it will help those who know how to use it. Those who ignore it will walk, while others will fly.
Meskó wants access to future studies to be available not just to researchers but to everyone. “I’ve been using amazing futures methods for over one and a half decades, and I found them extremely useful when trying not to predict what is going to happen in medicine and healthcare, but to create futuristic visions and scenarios for people,” he reveals. Convinced that the future must be democratized, he decided that the best way to achieve this is through the tool he has used for years: scientific communication. His mission is to bring this knowledge to a broader audience, allowing more people to participate in building our shared future.
I just hope that 100 years from now, physicians can do what makes them enjoy their jobs. Like providing compassion, turning to patients with empathy, and having enough time.
Bertalan Meskó
But building this future isn’t just about discussing technological advancements per se. It also means asking ourselves what kind of world we want. “I just hope that 100 years from now, physicians can do what makes them enjoy their jobs. Like providing compassion, turning to patients with empathy, and having enough time,” he concludes. And if I could ask my 2054 self one thing, maybe it wouldn’t be about technological advancements or AI’s impact on medicine, but something much more personal: What’s the one thing I should have done differently? Have I lived with purpose? Have I been happy? I imagine my answers, and I get goosebumps again. Because the future isn’t something that just happens, it’s something we build with the decisions we make today.
