Virtual Informatics Course for Medical Students Progresses

My virtual informatics course for medical students is starting its third offering this week, and the uptake has been great. We hope to keep offering the course through the OHSU spring academic quarter, which runs through early June.

The primary impetus for the course is that medical students have been sidelined from clinical experiences due to the need to protect their health as well as conserve personal protective equipment (PPE) for physicians, nurses, and others taking care of patients.

The usual 10-week course has also been organized into a 4-week block format for medical students. Students are required only to complete the weekly multiple-choice assessments and not a term paper or final exam. The course has been offered not only to OHSU medical students but also to any medical student from any US allopathic or osteopathic medical school. External students register for the course through their own institutions, who send us lists of students to enroll in the course.

The medical student course has been offered in weekly waves. The first course started with 17 OHSU medical students. The second two offerings include 62 medical students from 11 different medical schools: Dartmouth College (2), Northwestern University (1), University of Iowa (6), University of North Dakota (2), University of Rochester (15), City University of New York School of Medicine (2), Emory University (12), University of Miami (3), Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine (9), Quinnipac University (1), and Stony Brook University School of Medicine (9). We anticipate additional waves of students from additional medical schools over the next few weeks.