Education: the jobs of the future needs contaminations

Humanitas University and the Milan Polytechnic have started a very special degree course. It’s called Medtec School and it will allow to study medicine and engineering at the same time, with the aim of training doctors able to understand and manage the advanced technologies that characterize, and will increasingly do, the medical profession.

How the doctor changes. In fact, there are more and more instances in which a doctor must be able to deal with emerging technologies in order to carry out his work in the best possible way. On the one hand more and more advanced devices allow more precise operations, as with the Da Vinci robot, carried out even at a distance, and it is essential for doctors to be able to relate to these instruments in a competent manner. On the other hand, diagnostic systems that exploit artificial intelligence to detect diseases are spreading. These are systems that must not and cannot replace the work of the doctor who must, however, be able to exploit these systems to the best to carry out their work in the most efficient way possible.

The keyword is hybridization. There are more and more jobs in which skills cannot be restricted to their own field. Transversal skills and soft skills are key principles of a labor market that increasingly requires hybrid figures. Technological innovation has the power to make work obsolete, but also to create new professions and new ways of operating: a report written by Burning Glass Technologies has found that this trend is growing. One job out of eight in the US, according to the study, is highly hybridized, with ramifications both in the use of new technologies in its profession and in the application of data analysis and management capabilities.

The most contaminated sectors. In addition to the analysis of Big Data, the design and development sectors, together with that of customer care and, of course, emerging technologies, are the forerunners of this trend that sees hybrid roles increasingly sophisticated and specialized. Precisely for this reason, entering these professional sectors is difficult, with consequences that are reflected both in the world of education and in the world of work. The challenge for education and training institutions is to be able to keep up to date and offer young people study paths in line with market demands. At the same time, workers, from employees to managers, need to know what skills to add to their baggage in order to still be attractive to employers.

Will robots steal our work? The concern that machines, robots, and automation could steal our work soon is unfounded; the work of the future puts man at the center and the machines will not replace him but will become his extensions. Precisely for this reason, it will be fundamental for workers of the future to be familiar, as well as with their professional field, even with those skills that bind them to electronics, engineering, and robotics.