[gdebel]

Haha, you are perfectly right. I totally admit that I'm an amateur with a low level of ML expertise.

One the other hand, ML researchers with a deep knowledge expertise are extremely hard to find, even among statisticians / programmers. I suppose that the people with a real expertise are working on their own startup or in FAANG.

This leads to a situation where the medical research involving ML is largely without interest or full of bias. It is easy to spot in the literature.

[n3ur0n]

I think it's partly the incentive structure that is to be blamed. Historically, quantitative PhDs in healthcare(medical physicists, statisticians, comp. genetics) have been underpaid (in my opinion). Now with FAANG and Quant Funds willing to pay $400K+ comp packages to these PhDs, there are far more exit opportunities for these PhDs.

On a positive note, I'm so glad that clinicians are taking interest in ML! As a practicing ophthalmologist, the fact that you were able to self teach is really impressive! I do know that a lot companies are looking for people like you, who have clinical experience. If you are interested you should explore roles/potential collaborations with some of these health research teams in tech.