There isn’t a single industry that has remained immune to the rapid advancement of technology, from manufacturing to marketing and medicine, the world has become dependent on smart solutions across different sectors. We use AI to make smarter predictions, automation to simplify jobs for people, software tools to automate and streamline processes, and advanced online platforms for everything from sales to studies. In the medical field, the importance of technology has always been recognized.
Physicians, surgeons, lab technicians, EMTs and everyone in between rely on advanced tech-based tools and methods to provide the best possible care to their patients. Beyond that, education in the medical field has come a long way precisely by implementing tech and digital solutions. Here’s how technology has transformed medical education and healthcare in general.
Greater availability due to lower costs
Obtaining a degree in medicine has always been deemed a prestigious matter, especially since access to such studies is extremely limited. Many families cannot afford to move to bigger cities, let alone the tuition fees, medical textbooks, and unpaid internships. With medical lectures moving online, many of them offered for free or at a much lower price on various platforms, more people in developing countries can now get their education.
What’s more, kids from impoverished families will also have a chance to expand their knowledge in all things related to medicine, with access to a computer and a solid internet connection. The lower costs of a digital classroom help many get the certification they need to pass various exams and qualify to become nurses, EMTs, home aides, and the like.
Digital learning material and diversification
Even though studying medicine does entail very specific materials and courses, there are ways to make the learning process easier and more appealing to people with various learning preferences. For students wanting to obtain advanced cardiac life support skills and work in stressful situations – improving their skills at home can help them handle the stress of a real-life situation.
Thanks to online courses and video-based tutorials, medical students can improve very specific and intricate skills such as airway management in ACLS online training, which will be useful for emergency situations. Having access to different learning formats aside from textbooks, and being able to learn at their own pace from home helps students brace themselves more comprehensively.
Enabling a different learning pace
Sometimes even the most talented students need a little more time to tackle a certain subject or a specific part of a course. Especially in a stressful situation such as the pandemic, students can leverage various tech solutions to pace themselves.
They can attend online courses when they have the time and take exams when they cover the material enough times. They can learn from their phones while commuting to the lab. And, they can use entire online databases to look into existing research papers when writing their own thesis.
Virtual reality to empower advanced skills
For medical professions that require ongoing practice and ample of it before taking on a real-life situation, such as training to become a surgeon, virtual reality can be extremely helpful. The integrated AI can help future doctors determine their errors more accurately, find out about alternative and more effective procedures, and thus master their trade over time.
VR tools can help aspiring medical professionals in every branch of healthcare, since working in this simulated environment reduces the pressure while creating a realistic feel of the work that needs to be done.
Ongoing communication with students
The classroom is and always will be an important aspect of studying to become a medical professional. After all, oral exams and in-person consultations, working in laboratories and with actual tools and samples will always be the heart of medical advancement. However, what helps students beyond the classroom is the modern, tech-enabled interaction with lecturers and other medical professionals.
Today’s students have at their disposal everything from email correspondence, online chat, all the way to personalized digital classrooms where they can improve their skills by accessing hundreds of digital lectures and reaching out to medical experts everywhere. Communication has extended beyond the classroom, allowing students in medicine to learn and continue improving well outside the walls of their chosen universities.
Technology is one of the pillars of growth and advancement in medicine, and especially in the educational aspect of medicine in recent years. Much like other healthcare sectors have utilized digital solutions and tech-based tools, learning to join the healthcare industry is also empowered by technology today. Use the many facets of technology in medical education in order to become a versatile, skilled professional, and you’ll contribute to the wellbeing of humankind with the help of tech on your way to building your medical expertise and career.
