Learning a different side of medicine?

[faithwalk]

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Hello, I am a first year medical student and have watched this blog for some time but never actually posted. Because I know that many on here are older and have diverse backgrounds I figured someone could tell me if I would be wasting my time. I originally to spend my summer in Rural areas of Kansas through a school program. You earn credit and I am sure learn alot. However, my brother works for a company called Cerner-a company that provides software, services, devices that improve healthcare, increase efficiency and improve patient care. I was skeptical at first because after all, it is not your typical clinical work. However, after meeting with the vice president of life sciences research, I am considering it. We talked about a few projects including analyzing research data to look at specific diseases as well as working on improving the workflow between clinicians and researchers by designing decision-support tools. He said he was open to anything I wanted to do.

I really think I could learn a lot about the "electronic" side of medicine but does anyone think this would truly be worth the time?

Any advice is appreciated! 🙂

 

[sunset823]

I think that's a great opportunity, and you should definitely take it. I'm a bit of a techie myself, and I've known med students with a background in computer science (even an MD/PhD in comp-sci), and technology is going to become ever more important in medicine's future. I think it'll look very good in residency apps, and will also set you apart from the others sitting with pipettes (or SAS) for 3 months. Even though I did a clinical fellowship this past summer, the research I was doing was more along the lines you describe, using technology to improve patient care (my PI is an MD with a background in electrical engineering/comp-sci)

 

[computerdorkdan]

You'll be better off getting the clinical exp than you will spending a summer designing workflows.

 

[ACSurgeon]

I think that's a great opportunity, and you should definitely take it. I'm a bit of a techie myself, and I've known med students with a background in computer science (even an MD/PhD in comp-sci), and technology is going to become ever more important in medicine's future. I think it'll look very good in residency apps, and will also set you apart from the others sitting with pipettes (or SAS) for 3 months. Even though I did a clinical fellowship this past summer, the research I was doing was more along the lines you describe, using technology to improve patient care (my PI is an MD with a background in electrical engineering/comp-sci)

I agree with this. Plus it's great way to get your foot in the door of something great for the future.