The end of our profession is nigh! Chatbots and AI and Hal (I’m sort of hoping that there are either very very old people, or pre-millennial film buffs reading) will take over the world! Doctors are needed no more!

While this is mainly the news about diagnostic flowbots, it’s not just there we have computers taking over. In the worlds of the generation of evidence as in the practice of evidence-based medicine there are automations which can improve things. With better tagging and electronic indexing, we will soon be able to more easily discover all the clinical trials that have ever been performed in an area (see opentrials.net for an example). We are making strides in text-mining the publications to save our bored brains in systematic reviewing. The advent of living systematic reviews, updated as each new study appears, may make Archimedes obsolete.

Even with all the automation and advancement and push and notification and #tag there will still remain a simple truth we as child health specialist know and live every moment of our clinical lives.

Medicine is so much more than the medicine. Or the surgery. Or the radiotherapy.

The practice of medicine is the connection with patient and family, knowing sometimes when to wear a funny nose or tickle a teddy bear, when not to an be serious. When the all the evidence in the world is still the wrong thing to do. It’s why we always push the triad: evidence based practice is the intersection of patient preferences, high quality science and superb clinical skills. Archi can help, but must be used not followed.