Part 1: The SOAP Note - moving from Complex to Complicated to Simple

In The Checklist Manifesto, Atul Gawande wrote that he

...came across two professors who studied the science of complexity, which highlighted three types of problems in the world: the simple, the complicated and the complex. They are defined as:

Simple Problems – “are ones like baking a cake from a mix. There is a recipe. Sometimes there are a few basic techniques to learn. But once these are mastered, following the recipe brings a high likelihood of success.”

Complicated Problems – “are the ones like sending a rocket to the moon. They can sometimes be broken down into a series of simple problems. But there is no straightforward recipe. Success frequently requires multiple people, often multiple teams and specialized expertise. Unanticipated difficulties are frequent. Timing and coordination become serious concerns.”

Complex Problems – “are ones like raising a child. Once you learn how to send a rocket to the moon, you can repeat the process with other rockets and perfect it. One rocket is like another rocket. But not so with raising a child. Every child is unique. Although raising one child may provide experience, it does not guarantee success with the next child. Expertise is valuable but most certainly not sufficient. Indeed, the next child may require an entirely different approach from the previous one. And this brings up another feature of complex problems: their outcomes remain highly uncertain. Yet we all know that it is possible to raise a child well.”

For the longest time medicine has been part of the complex problem set. Doctors (very rightly) are highly trained with a minimum of 4 years of training followed by years of residency. The profession is seen as highly complex where they need to combine their book learning, with hands-on training and decades of experience to diagnose and treat a wide variety of health conditions. However in Low and Middle Income Countries, where doctors are in short supply, can some level of healthcare be provide by applying Artificial Intelligence to the SOAP (Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan) Note along with a touch of the Bayesian Priors?