AI exposure: General Internal Medicine Physicians
Diagnose and provide nonsurgical treatment for a wide range of diseases and injuries of internal organ systems. Provide care mainly for adults and adolescents, and are based primarily in an outpatient care setting.
Reading this score
computedAt 18.5% of weighted task load, General Internal Medicine Physicians sits at the 32th percentile, below the point where a job's centre of gravity has moved. 50.7% of what this role does is untouched, meaning current systems cannot produce that work at all, whatever the commercial incentive.
What holds the line here is verification cost. Across this occupation's 19 tasks it averages 2.84 out of 3, the highest of the five friction dimensions. In plain terms, checking the output costs more than producing it. Where an undetected error is expensive, dangerous or irreversible, the economics change. Someone has to verify the work, and verifying can cost as much as doing it. This is the friction most likely to fall as tools for checking improve.
The most exposed thing this job does is Analyze records, reports, test results, or examination information to diagnose medical..., at 40.0%. The least is Operate on patients to remove, repair, or improve functioning of diseased or injured body parts..., at 0.0%. A gap of 40.0% between two parts of the same job is the reason this index publishes at task level. An occupation-wide number would have hidden both.
Within healthcare practitioner and technical occupations, this one is less exposed than the median of 18.5% across the group's 89 roles, with 44 scoring higher. Being in an exposed family does not make a particular job exposed, and the reverse holds too.
What would move this score. Of 19 tasks, 2 are currently banded exposed, 11 assisted and 6 untouched. For that distribution to shift materially would take a change in who is permitted to sign the work, which is a question for regulators rather than for engineers. The score is re-computed every quarter against a fresh capability reference, and the change is published rather than quietly applied.
Where the score comes from
judgedEvery task is scored through the standardised work activities it maps to. These are this occupation’s averages on the six rubric dimensions. Capability is what AI can do; the other five are what stands in the way.
| Dimension | Mean | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| Capability | 1.96 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 0.96 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 1.75 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 2.79 | 0-3 |
| Context | 1.96 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 2.84 | 0-3 |
Task by task
19 tasks, O*NET 31.0| Task | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Importance | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Analyze records, reports, test results, or examination information to diagnose medical condition of patient. | 40.0% | 35.0% | 25.0% | 4.53 | exposed |
| Advise patients and community members concerning diet, activity, hygiene, and disease prevention. | 40.0% | 35.0% | 25.0% | 4.36 | exposed |
| Collect, record, and maintain patient information, such as medical history, reports, or examination results. | 35.0% | 40.0% | 25.0% | 4.24 | assisted |
| Provide consulting services to other doctors caring for patients with special or difficult problems. | 35.0% | 40.0% | 25.0% | 4.13 | assisted |
| Advise surgeon of a patient's risk status and recommend appropriate intervention to minimize risk. | 35.0% | 40.0% | 25.0% | 4.08 | assisted |
| Prepare government or organizational reports on birth, death, and disease statistics, workforce evaluations, or the medical status of individuals. | 35.0% | 40.0% | 25.0% | 3.09 | assisted |
| Plan, implement, or administer health programs in hospitals, businesses, or communities for prevention and treatment of injuries or illnesses. | 29.2% | 33.3% | 37.5% | 3.24 | assisted |
| Make diagnoses when different illnesses occur together or in situations where the diagnosis may be obscure. | 20.0% | 55.0% | 25.0% | 4.34 | assisted |
| Conduct research to develop or test medications, treatments, or procedures to prevent or control disease or injury. | 20.0% | 30.0% | 50.0% | 3.66 | assisted |
| Refer patient to medical specialist or other practitioner when necessary. | 16.7% | 33.3% | 50.0% | 4.28 | assisted |
| Explain procedures and discuss test results or prescribed treatments with patients. | 13.3% | 36.7% | 50.0% | 4.43 | assisted |
| Monitor patients' conditions and progress and reevaluate treatments as necessary. | 13.3% | 36.7% | 50.0% | 4.27 | assisted |
| Provide and manage long-term, comprehensive medical care, including diagnosis and nonsurgical treatment of diseases, for adult patients in an office or hospital. | 10.0% | 40.0% | 50.0% | 4.44 | assisted |
| Direct and coordinate activities of nurses, students, assistants, specialists, therapists, and other medical staff. | 5.0% | 20.0% | 75.0% | 3.82 | untouched |
| Prescribe or administer medication, therapy, and other specialized medical care to treat or prevent illness, disease, or injury. | 4.1% | 12.6% | 83.3% | 4.47 | untouched |
| Treat internal disorders, such as hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, or problems of the lung, brain, kidney, or gastrointestinal tract. | 3.3% | 21.7% | 75.0% | 4.48 | untouched |
| Manage and treat common health problems, such as infections, influenza or pneumonia, as well as serious, chronic, and complex illnesses, in adolescents, adults, and the elderly. | 2.5% | 22.5% | 75.0% | 4.46 | untouched |
| Immunize patients to protect them from preventable diseases. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.05 | untouched |
| Operate on patients to remove, repair, or improve functioning of diseased or injured body parts and systems. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.66 | untouched |
Task text and importance ratings sourced from O*NET 31.0. Shares computed. The occupation score is the importance-weighted mean.
Occupations either side of this one
The four closest scores in the same occupational family, then the four closest anywhere in the index.
Read this carefully. Exposure is not displacement. A high score means current AI systems can produce this work, not that anyone will stop paying a person to do it. Adoption depends on economics, regulation and inertia that this index deliberately does not model. How the score is built.
What this means in practice
Most of this work is not reachable by current systems, so the immediate pressure is on the administrative edges of the role rather than its core: the scheduling, the reporting, the written records. That is where time is recovered.