{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/pediatricians-general/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Pediatricians, General",
    "soc_code": "29-1221",
    "category": "Healthcare",
    "us_employment": 39390,
    "median_annual_wage": 210040
  },
  "verdict": "SAFE",
  "risk_resistance": 85,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 14,
    "embodiment": 16,
    "liability_shield": 19,
    "trust_premium": 19,
    "judgment_accountability": 17
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Charting, dosing checks, and well-visit anticipatory-guidance handouts are already largely templated or AI-drafted, which is why this sits at 14 rather than 18 — but eliciting a history from a nonverbal toddler, distinguishing a benign flow murmur from a pathological one by ear, and judging whether a lethargic 6-week-old needs a lumbar puncture tonight have no software substitute.",
    "embodiment": "Every encounter requires laying hands on a patient who cannot hold still or cooperate — otoscopy on a screaming 18-month-old, palpating an abdomen, checking hip abduction for dysplasia, drawing blood from tiny veins — in exam rooms, newborn nurseries, and sometimes delivery-room resuscitations; it stops short of 19 because the setting is a controlled clinic rather than a roadside or a rooftop.",
    "liability_shield": "You hold a state medical licence and DEA registration, you personally sign every immunization order and amoxicillin prescription, you are the named defendant when a missed diagnosis becomes a claim, and pediatric malpractice carries the longest statutes of limitation in medicine because the clock often does not start until the child turns 18.",
    "trust_premium": "Parents choose a specific pediatrician for their newborn and stay for eighteen years of visits — the continuity is what makes a vaccine-hesitant mother accept the MMR, what makes a teenager disclose depression or drug use with the parent out of the room, and what makes a 2 a.m. call worth taking; it is 19 rather than 20 only because urgent-care and nurse-line encounters absorb some volume without any relationship at all.",
    "judgment_accountability": "Fever in an infant under 90 days, when to suspect non-accidental trauma and file the mandated child-abuse report, whether to treat a possible ADHD presentation with stimulants or wait, whether failure to thrive is caloric or genetic — these are decisions made on incomplete information with a caregiver as the only historian, and AAP guidelines narrow but do not decide them."
  },
  "rationale": "A general pediatrician's day is hands-on physical exams of squirming infants, otoscope and auscultation findings, immunizations, growth and development assessment, and talking anxious parents through fevers, feeding, behavior, and vaccine hesitancy. AI already drafts notes, flags dosing errors, and can produce a solid differential from a symptom list, which compresses documentation and some triage — but the diagnostic exam, the prescription signature, and the parent's trust in a specific doctor are not transferable to software. Note that state licensure and personal malpractice liability are the hard legal floor here, and that floor is regulatory rather than technical.",
  "outlook": "Documentation and routine triage load shrinks substantially over ten years, letting pediatricians see more patients per hour rather than fewer pediatricians being needed; demand pressure comes from pediatric payer economics and birth rates, not from AI.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "State medical boards or legislatures explicitly extending the physician-signature requirement to AI-generated pediatric outputs — e.g. rules on the model of California AB 3030 (2024, requiring disclosure and physician review of GenAI clinical communications) and Texas HB 1265-style provisions, plus AAP guidance that a licensed pediatrician must personally review and attest to any AI-suggested dosing, immunization schedule deviation, or developmental screening result. Also: malpractice carriers writing policy exclusions for undocumented physician review of AI recommendations.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 1
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Task-mix shift: as AI absorbs well-child documentation, growth-curve plotting and routine dosing, the residual role concentrates on the genuinely ambiguous tier — the febrile neonate, suspected non-accidental trauma and mandated-reporter calls, failure-to-thrive workups, custody and consent disputes, and vaccine-hesitant counseling. Watch for CPT/E&M billing shifts toward high-complexity visits and for state child-abuse reporting statutes continuing to name a licensed physician as the accountable reporter.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Same two-tier shift, on the capability side: if payers move pediatrics toward capitated/value-based arrangements (CMS Making Care Primary, state pediatric ACOs) where the pediatrician's paid work is complex-care coordination for medically fragile children and behavioral/mental-health management rather than volume of routine visits, the remaining task set is disproportionately the part software cannot deliver.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "Little room upward — parental preference for a named pediatrician is already near-saturated at 19. The only realistic increment is countervailing: direct primary care and concierge pediatric memberships making the human-continuity premium explicitly priced rather than implicit.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 1
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "At 85/100 with liability and trust both at 19, there is almost no headroom; the meaningful question for this occupation is not whether the score rises but whether headcount and visit volume shrink while the score stays high. A high register score does not protect against fewer pediatricians each carrying a larger, more acute panel."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 29740,
        "wage": 175310
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 27550,
        "wage": 177130
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 33620,
        "wage": 170480
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 33430,
        "wage": 190350
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 34870,
        "wage": 198690
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 42960,
        "wage": 210130
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 39390,
        "wage": 210040
      }
    ],
    "from": 2019,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 32.4,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": false
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}