Computer Applications in Medicine Elective

2007 March

Instructor

Objectives

Challenge

• wide range of student backgrounds
• wide range of student interests

Requested topics

• databases: how to setup and manage them
• to use Excel for all it's worth
• some basic web design
• improve ability to use presentation software
• become more efficient at literature searching
• make the practice of medicine more efficient
• clinic and office management
• know some basic structure and functions of computers, including handhelds
• confidentiality

Comments from previous years

Great divergence of opinion. Typical criticisms:

• Keep the material as relevant and applicable as possible!!!
• Some basic computer stuff may be interesting but you must remember that we are physicians in training that need material that is tied to our future work and that is useful.
• Basic HTML coding is irrelevant, should teach how to use Web-design software.
• Section on e-mail, word processing etc. is a little frustrating for students who have grown up with computers and who have used these applications thousands of times. While it is true that many of us have bad habits in using the applications, and these may be worth addressing ...
• The Grygus article should be dropped completely. It annoyed a lot of people and was clearly one-sided.
• The book chapters are too general.
• I wasn't excited about doing so many small assignments but I found that they were instructive nonetheless.
• The HTML session should be done in the computer room so that students can input code as the teaching is being done. It would reinforce the concepts more and make it more interesting.

Approach

• review/overview lectures on some topics
• independent learning
• student readings and class discussions
• possibility of extra lectures or small-group sessions
• time for independent reading

General information

Unix accounts

Accounts on funsan.biomed.mcgill.ca are provided for the purpose of creating your own Web pages.

Because of the limited resources on Funsan, we ask that you use it only for uploading files for your Web pages. We will entertain individual requests for permission to do other things.

These accounts on Funsan will be removed at the end of this course, except by special arrangement.