I was watching aTED talk the other day on the jobs which are likely to be "threatened" by machines.

The very concept seems alien to me. I'm a technophile and have always looked to the machine to help me do a better, faster more accurate job.

There are tasks I do which are repetitive, structured and quite honestly boring, reading results and letters, tagging incoming data for example.

If we had a smart machine which could file the normal or unchanged result, generate the recall and urgency of the next test or appointment my life would be significantly improved.

If the machine improves my job by removing those high volume, repetitive tasks that I deplore then I won't feel threatened - I'll feel liberated.

The bit of my job as a GP which actually counts is the time speaking to humans, explaining and exploring their illness and their health, listening to their concerns and acting as an advocate in the health care system of the NHS.

Even that bit of the job can be enhanced by a machine intervention. My recent experiences with online access systems that attempt to advise or triage humans is that sometimes the humans like telling the machine what is worrying them, they like asking questions that would never pop up in a humans intervention. Just look at the questions we throw at Google for an example of the 21st century's love of bizarre.

So provide my population with a system that can tell them answers to questions such as "what is the best position for sex during pregnancy?" and "How often should I clean my belly button?" which means I won't have to offer my speculation on the matter.

Simply put, no matter what further technology is introduced to the family physicians role my job will never be "threatened" only enhanced.