At the risk of getting quite off-topic, in my opinion most physicians will eventually be replaced by a combination of Bayesian diagnostic software and surgical robotics. There will be an intermediate period where physicians will control and oversee the software and robots, but this too will pass.
Those tasks which cannot be easily roboticized (for example, all the soft skills) will be shifted over to nurses.
It's a lot more complicated than that. Bayesian analysis alone is insufficient to produce accurate diagnoses, and even with more advanced clinical decision support tools you still need a human to carry out the observations. Physicians won't be generally replaced until we have strong AI (at which point everyone gets replaced).
It's sor tof happening (not the tech part). I dated a nurse practitioner for a while, and the medical industry is putting more and more responsibility into their hands to save money.
Good luck in getting the vague descriptions of symptoms that patients give into your diagnostic software. When you say this, do you think it will happen in our lifetimes?
