From North to South, almost every countries are struggling to have enough healthcare professionals or to keep them where are most needed. Africa, in particular, is facing a growing health workforce crisis that no one seems to fix【1】. In addition, most of the newly graduated health provisionals live the continent to work in Western countries thus aggravating the situation.

Why All Countries Are Struggling to Build and Retain Health Workers 🏙️🚑🏞️

In every region, health professionals are drawn to big cities, where salaries, lifestyle, and career growth opportunities are concentrated. According to the OECD, rural areas worldwide have 60% fewer health professionals per capita than urban centers【2】. In Africa, the situation is even worse: over 47% of the population lives in rural areas, but only 24% of doctors work there【3 】. There is also a phenomenon of expatriated African healthcare workforce at a large scale and for example there are more beninese medical doctors in France than there are in Benin;

On top of this, medical education is notoriously restrictive. Globally, only one out of every ten applicants gets into medical school【4】. This selective model limits the supply of health workers and fails to meet growing population needs. There’s come AI and Technolgy our saviours , Let’s dig in …

What AI Does Better Than Humans (Already) 🤖📊💡

With a huge performance observed in the last decade, AI is already outperforming humans in several critical areas:

1. Better Memory and Data Integration

When we look at it, medical doctors are not shaped like engineers to create new solutions for existing problems. The main skills they have is a large amount of medical information they can refer to when needed, so it’s more about the memory than anything else. Now, AI systems like IBM Watson can process over 20 million medical records in seconds, while a human doctor can only retain a fraction of that over a lifetime【5】.

2. Better Diagnostic Accuracy

Doctors also refers to their memory or experience bank, to identify the diagnosis which are fitting the most with the symptoms observed or based on the medical exam they realise. But, in a 2024 MIT study, an AI model outperformed 1,000 radiologists, achieving a 12% higher diagnostic accuracy rate in cancer detection【6】.

3. Lower Operational Costs

AI-powered diagnostic tools like Lunit Insight cost less than $5 per screening, compared to $50–$150 for human-led radiology services【7】. Robotic-assisted surgeries have also reduced costs by 20–30% in some health systems【8】.

Should We Replace Human Health Workers With AI? ❌👨‍⚕️🤝🤖

Not really, and here’s why.

AI can handle technical tasks, but it cannot replace empathy, trust, or human connection. As Professor Bertalan Meskó, The Medical Futurist, puts it: “Technology can support, but never replace, the human touch in healthcare.”【9】

This shift redefines the role of health workers and main qualities:

• Less focus on memorization.

• More focus on patient interaction and care delivery.

• Working alongside AI as decision-support partners.

Rethinking Medical Education: Training for Empathy Over Elitism 🎓❤️🧑‍⚕️

If AI handles diagnostics and data management, we could rethink medical training and academics models in order to :

• Reduce medical school duration maybe by 2 or 3 years, focusing on communication, empathy, and community care.

• Train more health workers faster to meet rural and underserved area needs.

Therefore, his aligns with the WHO’s call to produce an additional 18 million health workers by 2030, especially in low-resource settings【1】.

Technology and AI as a Rural Health Equalizer 🏞️📡🚑

AI and point-of-care devices can extend healthcare services to remote areas where human resources are lacking. For example :

• Portable AI-powered ultrasound devices like Butterfly iQ+ cost under $2,000, making them accessible for rural clinics【10】.

• AI-powered chatbots are already providing basic triage services in rural Kenya at near-zero cost【11】.

As Dr. John Nkengasong, former Director of Africa CDC, notes: “Technology offers Africa a unique chance to leapfrog traditional health delivery models.”【12】

Human + AI = The Future of Care ✅🧑‍⚕️🤝🤖

AI won’t replace healthcare workers. It will empower them to focus on what matters most: human care. To succeed, health systems must:

• Rethink academic and training models, in order to ease access to these carrier to people with required human qualities and willingness to help others

• Expand workforce capacity, by using technology strengths to complete human weaknesses and enable acces for unavailable specialties or healthcare pathways

• Leverage AI combined to point of care solution to reach rural and underserved populations.

The question is no longer whether AI can do it better. It already does. The real question is: how will we reshape healthcare education to build a workforce fit for the future?

Sources 📚🔍📝

1. WHO – Global Health Workforce Shortage Projections (2023)

2. OECD – Health Worker Distribution in Urban vs. Rural Areas (2022)

3. Africa CDC – Health Workforce in Africa Report (2023)

4. Lancet – Global Medical School Admission Rates Study (2022)

5. IBM Watson Health Overview (2023)

6. MIT – AI vs. Radiologists Diagnostic Performance Study (2024)

7. Lunit Insight – Pricing and Market Impact Report (2024)

8. McKinsey – Robotic Surgery Cost Savings Analysis (2023)

9. Dr. Bertalan Meskó – The Medical Futurist Blog (2024)

10. Butterfly Network – Portable Ultrasound Market Overview (2024)

11. WHO Africa – Digital Health Case Study in Kenya (2023)

12. Africa CDC – Interview with Dr. John Nkengasong (2023)

Missing Data ❓📉🔬

• Detailed cost-benefit analysis of reduced training duration models.

• National data on medical education reform pilots.

• Real-world cost savings from AI deployment in African rural health systems.

• Patient trust and satisfaction metrics in AI-supported care.

• National policies integrating AI into workforce planning.