Lost in digitalization: on the vanishing of the individual patient in the medicine of the future

Abstract Although digital medicine promises unprecedented individualization through data-driven precision, this paper argues that the opposite trajectory could emerge. Unless medicine proceeds with caution, the patient risks being reduced to a statistical abstraction, removed from the physician’s moral and perceptual grasp, as digitalization accelerates. In the article, I discuss three possible distortions that could contribute to this trend: First, patients could be reduced to quantifiable data points through datafication. Second, several forms of bias may contribute to the homogenization of patients or the neglect of individuality. Third, virtualization in telemedicine may foster the fragmentation and depersonalization of the patient–physician encounter. Together, these developments risk diminishing rather than enhancing personalized care. The paper therefore calls for critical vigilance to ensure that technological innovation remains anchored in attentiveness to the unique, embodied individual—such that, in pursuing precision, medicine does not lose sight of the very person it seeks to serve.