Hello there,
I would like to introduce myself; my name is Fady and I’m a physician from New Zealand. I’m starting to learn the first few coding lessons at Free Code Camp. I’m interested in learning new skills and I’m just wondering what coding can do for me in my profession if any.
Thanks
Also a physician. For me it’s a way to unwind and refresh my mind outside of medicine
Hi @FadySaeed, welcome to the coding community!
I’m in a biomedical informatics program in the US and there are several physicians learning how to program. The usefulness for a physician will depend on what kind of additional work you’d like to do. You can either go into clinical research or clinical informatics.
Programming can come in handy in clinical research if you need to run some analysis or understand a little bit about the computational side of research. Another avenue for you may be in health analytics.
Clinical informatics may be a more viable route for you. At least in the US, the digital field in health care is still growing and patients are interacting with the health care system using mobile devices and web applications. Additionally, our medical records are digitized and I think it’ll be increasingly important to have physicians who know a little bit about programming to talk with software engineers on how to improve the electronic medical records in terms of, say, their decision support systems, usability (user interface/user experience), and other accessory applications.
Here’s some information on being board certified in clinical informatics. Additionally, being able to program enough to talk with the information technology (IT) department can possibly qualify you for a chief medical informatics officer (CMIO) position.
I am a physician as well and have found learning a computer language to be quite refreshing and enlightening… I hope to be able to contribute to creating and collaborating on health web applications…
Great. I find it mentally stimulating and fun too. What’s your area of expertise?
Thanks for these valuable information. Integrating medicine and software is on the rise 
I am in pediatric cardiology… hope to make web applications for congenital heart disease and childhood obesity
I definitely agree with you
I have been on Free Code Camp since June… I am beginner learning everyday so let me know if you need anything…
No problem! Here are some things to look into for some applications helping the medical field.
You can also look into Apple’s HealthKit. If you’re into medical research, apparently HealthKit can be used to help recruit patients into studies.
Thanks doc. I’m just wondering how long it takes to finish the whole thing and whether further study/practice is needed beyond the scope of this community…
Whatever you want it to - that is the beauty of it.
You could pop over to participate in this:
I have been working on FCC since June and am on the last Project in ( Advanced Javascript - Simon Game)… I work on it about 4 hours per day… They say it takes about a year or longer… I set a personal goal to complete the program in 18 months…
I’ve been in FCC since about 1 month after it’s inception, so 2 years now. Working on it on and off. Have done the full front end minus simon (can’t get the play order correct!) and now working on back end projects.
An easy fun app that I can see doing based on what I currently know would be a medical calculator database. Sure, it’s been done, and done nicely, but it’s a simple structure that would be good for practicing.
I work in Emergency Medicine and have been trying to think of a structure for coding a simulation based training app for medics and aeromedical teams to help reinforce protocols. Could be adjusted per institution or service as well.
Very inspiring, thank you