How AI is shaping the future of medicine and plastic surgery

Artificial intelligence (AI) is undoubtedly top of mind in many professions right now. It provides high-level analysis of mundane data and offers quick summaries of in-depth reporting. AI has quickly proven to be a valuable tool for assisting professionals with otherwise time-consuming tasks. This can also be said for those within the medical profession, as AI becomes increasingly integrated into daily operations and is being considered for future applications.

There is still plenty of work to do to bring the full scope of AI capabilities into plastic surgery and the medical field in general. However, some are already using AI to assist in some of their daily work, not in the sense of providing medical guidance or running medical analyses, but more so in handling daily tasks such as content creation, checking for grammatical and spelling errors in writing and providing other data-centric support.

While there are still many steps to take to further integrate AI in the medical field, some notable advancements made in the past few years have pushed this technology forward.

To gather more insight into the growing role of AI within plastic surgery and possible future advancements and applications, we reached out to ASPS Member Surgeon Roy Kim, MD.

ASPS: In looking at the new year ahead, one of the most exciting developments that is seeing a boom in patient awareness is the use of AI in the world of plastic surgery. How has this technology developed over the last few years?

Dr. Kim: This is me being honest – I think there's a lot of excitement on paper. In reality, there is very little that is practical for actual patient care. There are papers on AI predictions of surgical results, but there isn't anything quite there just yet. There's no software that exists yet that shows surgeons what to do and how to do it. However, it's great for creating content – social media, reviews of nerdy surgical articles and such – but we haven't seen anything applicable within actual surgery just yet.

ASPS: Are there any new applications of AI in the world of plastic surgery that have been developed recently that patients should be aware of?

Dr. Kim: The AI Skin Analysis from Perfect Corporation – it may sound like a James Bond villain, but it's actually a real company that's publicly traded. They have done imaging for many clothing manufacturers and makeup companies, so if you've ever tried something online via selfie – that's Perfect Corporation.

They have so much data from all over the world in terms of face and body that they came out with a skin analysis tool a couple of months ago. They can take your selfie and apply Botox, lasers, chemical peels, skin lasers, etc. and give you the only publicly available AI results that are actually accurate. They have the data set – they've been doing this for over a decade. They can predict, with good accuracy, what you'll look like following a noninvasive or less-invasive treatment. This will give the doctor and patient recommendations on what treatments would be suggested and what the results would look like. In other words, it's predictive based on real patient data versus just making predictions.

It can definitely go into the surgical realm – we already do have some software that does this within the area of breast augmentation, but it can end up looking a little off or pixelated, depending on the patient.

ASPS: Are there any upcoming developments or advancements in medicine that we should expect to see within the next few years?

Dr. Kim: The interpretation of lab results, skin cancer surveillance, dermatology, radiology or really anywhere that you're looking at a bunch of similar images over time are all already being assisted by AI.

Imagine if you're a student and you worked for 10,000 hours on mastering one task – in the end, you'd be pretty good. But what if you had a student who never slept, never ate, never took a break and is constantly studying – that's AI. It's already better than a doctor at identifying skin cancer. This existing software was designed and created for family physicians out in the middle of nowhere who don't have access to actual dermatologists or oncologists. In a year or two, you'll be able to take a picture of skin, such as a human back with a suspicious spot, and the AI will be able to predict whether it's melanoma or not. With this level of accuracy, why would you go to a dermatologist when you could go to a scanner every few months?

ASPS: How do you personally use AI in your current practice, if at all?

Dr. Kim: I mostly use AI for content creation – anything you can imagine, use or do currently can be repurposed. If you like to talk and you have a podcast, you can put it in an AI machine and it will produce a blog post, social posts, suggested AI images and more. I'm already doing all of this – it's wild. If I have a YouTube video, I can easily convert it into a podcast, threads for X and a blog post. On top of that, creating video B-roll with AI is eerily accurate and wild. I'm also using it for patient recovery and education – mostly what to expect post-procedure.

ASPS: Are there any detriments or downsides that you see to the continued development and application of AI within the world of plastic surgery?

Dr. Kim: I think the naysayers are dead wrong. Statistically, if AI is more accurate than the average doctor, what's the point of seeing the average doctor? Next, what if it's more accurate than the top specialists? It's one thing if it's better than the average doctor, but what if it's better than a world-expert doctor? Another thing to consider about AI is the psychological aspect of it – the question of "who do I trust?" On paper, looking at accuracy and results, it's the AI, but a lot of people have difficulty overcoming the psychological aspect of this hump.

Another drawback is the patients themselves. In reality, patients are not great data-answering machines – you have to ask them the right questions to get a good response. They're all different, with different backgrounds, different language understandings, etc. You need to try to draw out precision in answers in order to plan the right treatment and get the right results. If the patients are bored, not descriptive enough or don't understand what you're asking, you'll have imprecise answers. This is a limitation of AI – the disconnect between AI and the hard data with how humans work and think.

ASPS: Are there any other insights around this topic that you'd like to share?

Dr. Kim: With AI, you need lots of data – this is one thing that the aesthetic world lacks. In terms of aesthetics in medicine, no AI bot is cataloging all of the obscure aesthetics or plastic surgery papers or even the common things in aesthetics. This is another current limitation of AI that needs to be considered.

To find a qualified plastic surgeon for any cosmetic or reconstructive procedure, consult a member of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. All ASPS members are board certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery, have completed an accredited plastic surgery training program, practice in accredited facilities and follow strict standards of safety and ethics. Find an ASPS member in your area.