Ethical considerations and challenges in pediatric surgical artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) appeals to surgical specialties given its potential to enhance patient care by improving diagnostic accuracy, surgical planning, and intraoperative safety; promoting early recognition of postoperative complications; and streamlining the surgeon’s workload by facilitating time-consuming yet essential aspects of clinical documentation. For example, AI note summarization provides the surgeon the opportunity to prepare for ambulatory visits by offering concise summaries of relevant details within previous notes and results, decreasing the chart review burden, which contributes to physician burnout and dissatisfaction. Moreover, ambient documentation, an AI-powered technology that listens to the natural conversation during the patient encounter and drafts a note of concepts discussed, offers the surgeon the opportunity to focus on direct patient care, and spend less time distracted on the computer, improving patient care and time of meaningful work.