Sharing intriguing survey results from the 2020 Health Trends Report published by Stanford. The survey was conducted from September to October 2019 across the United States, targeting 523 physicians, 133 residents, and 71 medical students.

This report aimed to understand what physicians, residents, and medical students think about digital technologies that will have significant impacts on the future medical environment.

Among those who responded, 47% of the physicians and 73% of the medical students said they are preparing for data and digital healthcare innovations separately. The most common areas of study among students were statistics and data science (44%) and population health management (36%), while genomic counseling (38%) and AI technology (34%) were most prevalent among physicians.

Approximately half of the respondents said they monitor their health using wearable devices and reflect the monitoring results in their health-related decisions more often than not. Additionally, the percentages of respondents who found health applications, wearables, and genomic analysis services to be clinically meaningful were 78%, 79%, and 63%, respectively.

Furthermore, these respondents indicated that past and current medical education has not sufficiently prepared them for the rapidly changing healthcare environment. Specifically, about 23% of the medical students felt that current education was of little to no use in this regard, with only 18% finding it very useful. Among physicians, 44% believed their past education did not sufficiently prepare them for the current situation, compared to 19% who considered it sufficient.

The report concludes with the following statement:

“Medical training and education will need to be continuously modernized to keep pace with new practice trends. Leaders across health care, government, technology, and other groups will need to engage in constructive ways to tackle physician concerns, including practice burdens that lead to professional distress and disillusionment. While the issues are manifold, we believe that those with a stake in the future have both a strong incentive to act and the capacity to do so.”

Medicine is like team sports.

This is a comparison I frequently saw during my time preparing to transfer to medical school. Despite my limited perspective as a student, the more I saw it, the more I agreed. Treating one patient involves collaboration among professionals from diverse backgrounds including healthcare providers, researchers, pharmaceutical companies, insurance corporations, healthcare policy influencers, and the patients themselves.

What is the most important factor in team sports? While there can be many answers, the importance of teamwork and communication in a team cannot be overstated. Studying the molecular mechanisms of various diseases or healthcare policies and systems in medical school is not only to deeply understand diseases and the healthcare system but also to facilitate smooth communication with researchers and healthcare policymakers researching diseases.

It’s no longer a prediction but a clear future that digital technologies will transform the healthcare environment. This means individuals like programmers, wearable device designers, and app developers will also become part of the aforementioned healthcare team. To enable smooth communication with professionals in fields that will newly contribute to healthcare, it is necessary to provide basic courses in programming, AI, and other aspects of digital literacy for healthcare providers.

One regrettable point is that revising school curricula is never easy. Naturally, curriculum revisions require administrative consensus and a long timeline, making it somewhat difficult to expect educational institutions to prepare students for digital healthcare at a curriculum level. This might explain why a significant portion of the American medical school students who participated in the survey felt that their education is insufficiently preparing them for the evolving healthcare environment.

Why I Created a Small IT Group in Medical School

Then, how can medical students, who will live in the era of digital healthcare, prepare for the future? Self-study is convenient but maintaining motivation consistently is difficult. Adding studies related to digital healthcare on top of an already busy academic schedule is not easy.

Personally, I believe that the most effective way is to form groups with like-minded individuals. Creating a group offers several advantages: 1) enjoying the learning process together, 2) ensuring continuous improvement rather than just one-time enhancement, and 3) providing a positive environment that sustains study efforts even when individual motivation wanes.

This is also why I created a small IT group where I can share ideas and knowledge with friends who have similar thoughts.

Initially, I had many concerns. From whether there would be any applicants to whether I have the capability to create a curriculum for the planned simple classes over the year, and whether I’m just adding more to an already demanding medical school schedule.

Fortunately, thanks to the interest and empathy shown by those around me, we have secured enough members to call it a group. With the new semester starting, there’s a lot to prepare and many worries ahead. No matter how much we prepare, there will always be inadequacies.

However, as most tasks proceed with trial and error rather than perfection, I hope we will somehow overcome this. I will occasionally share our learnings and points to share as we prepare and manage the group.