Programming and How This Could Be Essential to Your Practice
Dec 05, 2020
Published by Kathrin O'Neill
While many may find programming an obscure (or peculiar) role for a doctor to fulfill, some doctors are finding it an essential skill to learn for their profession. With more medical professionals turning to electronic medical records as well as telemedicine, it’s highly likely that doctors will also be looking to becoming technically proficient in their practice.
If you want to improve your skills in programming, you can look into dev bootcamps. Combining your knowledge with this skill, computer science allows you to leverage your knowledge with this versatile platform.
Take for example E. Kevin Hall, a well-known cardiologist from Yale, developed iPhone-based research to help him understand the quality of life among cardiomyopathy patients. The Standford Children’s Hospital also launched a mobile program that encourages diabetic patients to share their sugar levels with their healthcare providers. So, if you’re contemplating diversifying your skills set, here are some of the reasons why you should try to give programming a try.
Most doctors struggle with this aspect in their patient care. You’ve likely encountered this during your residency as well. In the case of E. Kevin Hall, monitoring patients using technology allows him to enhance patient care by getting a clearer picture of their health status.
With the overwhelming administrative tasks and patient count, you might not have enough time to monitor your client’s overall health. By leveraging on technology, you can have the opportunity to do more for your patients’ well-being.
Evidence-based medicine is crucial in clinical advancements. Before, doctors were not required to learn statistics. It’s not even included in their regular curriculum. Fast-forward today, many are looking into data science to derive results from these studies using technology.
As such, the role of programming can help you gather better data resulting in the consistent quality of patient care. Two programming languages namely Python and R programming are more suited for these types of data processing. Overall, doctors with this exceptional skill can leverage technology to get consistent, clear, and objective data for analysis.
As insiders, doctors have hands-on experience in working with patients. Advancements done by engineers and scientists have always gone hand-in-hand with rich clinical insights from healthcare providers. For doctors who already have an extensive background in this arena, programming allows them to create technology that’s not just based on theory but practice.
Moreover, doctors are exposed to inefficiencies in medical practice. Sharing and collaborating with fellow doctors, patients, and other medical providers will further enhance current settings and continuously develop better tools for patient care and medical advancements.
You may think of it as a continuous learning pursuit. Programming may come from a different spectrum in practice and skill set. However, these interdisciplinary skills could help you in the long run.
As a programmer, there are logical steps you have to take to create certain actions. It entails problem-solving and constantly involving oneself in ‘perfection’. Coding has strict rules to follow, so divulging in this kind of activity could help improve the detection of errors in your sequences.
Doctors are more exposed to using technology as part of their day-to-day practice. It helps them perform better leading to improved outcomes. Doctors with programming backgrounds may find it easier to navigate using new tools in the market. Transitioning from using ‘old’ tools to new ones might not be as hard for a well-learned programmer.
As the pandemic has shown, doctors are shifting to doing video conferencing, mobile monitors, and virtual consultations. Troubleshooting glitches along the way might not hinder them from doing their jobs efficiently even without any face-to-face meetings. Take for example the use of virtual medical aids like SnowWorld, a software used by burn victims to reduce pain. In these difficult times, doctors who transition faster can deliver better patient management.
If you’re looking to develop your research material, data science will help you with that. There are several languages to choose from with Python as a leading favorite even for beginner programmers. Best of all, it’s an open-source with a large community you can tap for queries or check the latest developments. If you’re looking to create a product, front-end development languages like HTML, Javascript, and CSS are some you could use. Most of these languages integrate well with websites and mobile applications, so it would make it easier for you to create and run it on these platforms.
