Sometimes it feels like the greatest feat in the world to pick up the phone and call your doctor. Once you’ve jumped through that hurdle, you awkwardly tell the receptionist why you need to go see the GP. After getting poked and prodded, none of it feels worth it when you have to just walk away after being told you’re fine. It is too often that a woman’s pain and illness is ignored. There is a sex and gender pain gap in our healthcare systems that forces us to exist in a state of pain and makes medical negligence something normalised. This issue further affects women of colour, who receive even less attention for their health problems. Yet with developments in artificial intelligence and computational medicine, a level of bias can be removed and medical issues can be addressed more rapidly/safely. 

The physically and emotionally exhausting experience of receiving a correct diagnosis can be reduced to a slightly inconvenient moment with the aid of technology. Cervical and breast cancers, endometriosis, pregnancy complications, menopausal issues amongst other ailments can receive better treatment. Artificial intelligence can help doctors accurately identify whether an ovarian mass is benign or malignant in a single moment, as it searches through a database which has thousands of diagnoses to come to its own conclusion. Implementing these technologies would reduce the gynaecology waiting lists, as 1 in 20 people are left waiting for over a year to receive treatment. There’s an added postcode lottery, where those in the North-West of England have 8 out of 10 of the worst affected Clinical Commissioning Groups. 

Whilst the long-term management of pain and delayed treatment makes it difficult for women to live fulfilling lives, there is the added impact of the extensive psychological damage it causes. PTSD, depression and substance abuse becomes common for people in this situation. Opioid pain medications are often given to women for their cervical pains despite the little evidence for their effectiveness, which can lead to opioid misuse if patients don’t receive a proper wellness check. Even though AI can reduce the chances of this happening by providing faster treatments and correct diagnoses, it also supports mental health services in the same manner. With chatbots and digital phenotyping, it can identify changes in behaviour to best support how you’re feeling. 

Eliminating additional intrusive examinations and actually taking a patient’s symptoms seriously, artificial intelligence could make for the ideal doctor. The fears women have felt since the beginning of time can be eliminated. A hospital can finally become a place that cures the person.