What are the benefits of teaching medical students computer coding?
File(s)
Published version
OA Location
Author(s)
Morton, C
Smith, S
Lwin, T
George, M
Williams, M
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Background: The ability to construct simple computer programs (coding) is being progressively recognized as a life skill. Coding is now being taught to primary-school children worldwide, but current medical students usually lack coding skills, and current measures of computer literacy for medical students focus on the use of software and internet safety. There is a need to train a cohort of doctors who can both practice medicine and engage in the development of useful, innovative technologies to increase efficiency and adapt to the modern medical world. Objective: The aim of the study was to address the following questions: (1) is it possible to teach undergraduate medical students the basics of computer coding in a 2-day course? (2) how do students perceive the value of learning computer coding at medical school? and (3) do students see computer coding as an important skill for future doctors? Methods: We developed a short coding course to teach self-selected cohorts of medical students basic coding. The course included a 2-day introduction on writing software, discussion of computational thinking, and how to discuss projects with mainstream computer scientists, and it was followed on by a 3-week period of self-study during which students completed a project. We explored in focus groups (FGs) whether students thought that coding has a place in the undergraduate medical curriculum. Results: Our results demonstrate that medical students who were complete novices at coding could be taught enough to be able to create simple, usable clinical programs with 2 days of intensive teaching. In addition, 6 major themes emerged from the FGs: (1) making sense of coding, (2) developing the students' skill set, (3) the value of coding in medicine, research, and business, (4) role of teaching coding in medical schools, (5) the concept of an enjoyable challenge, and (6) comments on the course design. Conclusions: Medical students can acquire usable coding skills in a weekend course. They valued the teaching and identified that, as well as gaining coding skills, they had acquired an understanding of its potential both for their own projects and in health care delivery and research. They considered that coding skills teaching should be offered as an optional part of the medical curriculum.
Date Acceptance
2018-12-30
ISSN
1438-8871
Publisher
JMIR Publications
Journal / Book Title
Journal of Medical Internet Research
Copyright Statement
© Caroline E Morton, Susan F Smith, Tommy Lwin, Michael George, Matt Williams. Originally published in JMIR Medical Education (http://mededu.jmir.org), 22.03.2019. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Medical Education, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://mededu.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
License URL
Identifier
10.2196/11940
Subjects
08 Information and Computing Sciences
11 Medical and Health Sciences
17 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences
Medical Informatics