Job Check
Pediatric Surgeons
Diagnose and perform surgery to treat fetal abnormalities and birth defects, diseases, and injuries in fetuses, premature and newborn infants, children, and adolescents. Includes all pediatric surgical specialties and subspecialties.
10 main tasks · most important first
Your main tasks and AI
Importance- 01Analyze patient's medical history, medication allergies, physical condition, and examination results to verify operation's necessity and to determine best procedure.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 02Conduct research to develop and test surgical techniques that can improve operating procedures and outcomes.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 03Consult with patient's other medical care specialists, such as cardiologist and endocrinologist, to determine if surgery is necessary.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 04Describe preoperative and postoperative treatments and procedures, such as sedatives, diets, antibiotics, or preparation and treatment of the patient's operative area, to parents or guardians of the patient.AI could speed this up a lot
- 05Direct and coordinate activities of nurses, assistants, specialists, residents, and other medical staff.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 06Examine fetuses, infants, children, and adolescents, and diagnose health issues to determine need for intervention, such as surgery.Mostly human for now
- 07Examine instruments, equipment, and operating room to ensure sterility.Mostly human for now
- 08Examine patient to obtain information on medical condition and surgical risk.Mostly human for now
- 09Follow established surgical techniques during the operation.Mostly human for now
- 10Inform parents and guardians of child's health problems and surgical procedures through various channels, such as in-person and telecommunication systems.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
Tasks from O*NET® 31.0 (US Department of Labor, CC BY 4.0, changed by us), most important first. “Already use” comes from Anthropic’s data on real work chats with Claude; “could speed up” from task ratings made with GPT-4 in 2023.
Four studies, side by side
None is a forecast of job lossToo little dataNot enough work use was seen to measure. This does not mean the job is safe from AI.Anthropic, 2026
36%of this job’s tasks an AI model could do in half the time, counting tasks that need extra tools as half (rated in 2023).Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin and Rock, 2023
Above 36% of jobsin how often and how well AI helped with this job’s work in Microsoft Copilot chats (2024 data).Microsoft Research (Tomlinson et al.), 2025
Your human edge
The main tasks with no real AI use seen and no big speed-up expected. This is where your skill counts most today.
- Examine fetuses, infants, children, and adolescents, and diagnose health issues to determine need for intervention, such as surgery.
- Examine instruments, equipment, and operating room to ensure sterility.
- Examine patient to obtain information on medical condition and surgical risk.