AHC: more working dogs in modern society?

For example, maybe a dog in a medical setting to sniff for infection or a particular disease might be a relatively common occurrence.

And/or in other ways, how might modern society have evolved to include more working dogs? :)
 
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The interesting thing, even in police work, it seems like dogs have had to be re-introduced, rather than being there all along.
That is interesting but working dogs still struggle to have a place in the modern world (at least compared to how much we use them)
 
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McBaine, a cancer sniffing dog

https://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/well/2014/09/10/training-dogs-to-sniff-out-cancer/?referer=


“We don’t ever anticipate our dogs walking through a clinic,” said the veterinarian Dr. Cindy Otto, the founder and executive director of the Working Dog Center. “But we do hope that they will help refine chemical and nanosensing techniques for cancer detection.”
Maybe in part because dogs aren't really accurate enough for an effective screening test?
 
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-34607818

Some studies suggest dogs can be 93% accurate.
I take that to mean, of the 'hits,' 93% are true positives.

Well, if a disease or condition is already rare, a 7% rate of false positives will swamp the true positives. This is for when we're screening the general public and no additional reason for thinking a person has a particular disease or condition.
 
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. . . work in rural areas of the third world in lieu of more expensive equipment or medicine?
Please see the above about false negatives.

I love the idea. In fact, I'd like to take it a step further and have people in the Third World teach us a thing or two! Maybe they get it right as far as how to follow up with a second test and develop a model with some patients or spread out rural conditions that's cheap, accessible, and repeatable. And we start imitating it in some parts of rich countries! :) Of course, we're going to say that with got it right and added the necessary refinements. And that's fine. We can go ahead and say that.
 
I take that to mean, of the 'hits,' 93% are true positives.

Well, if a disease or condition is already rare, a 7% rate of false positives will swamp the true positives. This is for when we're screening the general public and no additional reason for thinking a person has a particular disease or condition.

Given that sniffer dogs can be fooled by Weetabix, this actually happened, I am concerned.
 
I take that to mean, of the 'hits,' 93% are true positives.

Well, if a disease or condition is already rare, a 7% rate of false positives will swamp the true positives. This is for when we're screening the general public and no additional reason for thinking a person has a particular disease or condition.
You just need to make the test twice then. With a different dog, though.
 
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