Integrating Biomedical Informatics Training into Existing High School Curricula.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Diwadkar AR
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8378629 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:ObjectiveThe field of Biomedical and Health Informatics (BMHI) continues to define itself, and there are many educational programs offering 'informatics' degrees with varied foci. The goal of this study was to develop a scheme for systematic comparison of programs across the entire BMHI spectrum and to identify commonalities among informatics curricula.DesignGuided by several published competency sets, a grounded theory approach was used to develop a program/curricula categorization scheme based on the descriptions of 636 courses offered by 73 public health, nursing, health, medical, and bioinformatics programs in the USA. The scheme was then used to compare the programs in the aforementioned five informatics disciplines.ResultsThe authors developed a Course-Based Informatics Program Categorization (CBIPC) scheme that can be used both to classify coursework for any BMHI educational program and to compare programs from the same or related disciplines. The application of CBIPC scheme to the analysis of public health, nursing, health, medical, and bioinformatics programs reveals distinct intradisciplinary curricular patterns and a common core of courses across the entire BMHI education domain. Limitations The study is based on descriptions of courses from the university's webpages. Thus, it is limited to sampling courses at one moment in time, and classification for the coding scheme is based primarily on course titles and course descriptions.ConclusionThe CBIPC scheme combines empirical data about educational curricula from diverse informatics programs and several published competency sets. It also provides a foundation for discussion of BMHI education as a whole and can help define subdisciplinary competencies.
| S-EPMC3116256 | biostudies-literature
Project description:This small-scale comparison case study evaluates the impact of an innovative approach to teacher professional development designed to promote implementation of a novel cutting edge high school neurological disorders curriculum. 'Modeling for Fidelity' (MFF) centers on an extended mentor relationship between teachers and biomedical scientists carried out in a virtual format in conjunction with extensive online educative materials. Four teachers from different diverse high schools in Massachusetts and Ohio who experienced MFF contextualized to a 6-week Neurological Disorders curriculum with the same science mentor were compared to a teacher who had experienced an intensive in-person professional development contextualized to the same curriculum with the same mentor. Fidelity of implementation was measured directly using an established metric and indirectly via student performance. The results show that teachers valued MFF, particularly the mentor relationship and were able to use it effectively to ensure critical components of the learning objectives were preserved. Moreover their students performed equivalently to those whose teacher had experienced intensive in-person professional development. Participants in all school settings demonstrated large (Cohen's d>2.0) and significant (p<0.0001 per-post) changes in conceptual knowledge as well as self-efficacy towards learning about neurological disorders (Cohen's d>1.5, p<0.0001 pre-post). The data demonstrates that the virtual mentorship format in conjunction with extensive online educative materials is an effective method of developing extended interactions between biomedical scientists and teachers that are scalable and not geographically constrained, facilitating teacher implementation of novel cutting-edge curricula.
| S-EPMC4281152 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundInclusion of environmental health (EH) in medical education serves as a catalyst for preparing future physicians to address issues as complex as climate change and health, water pollution and lead contamination. However, previous research has found EH education to be largely lacking in U.S. medical education, putting future physicians at risk of not having the expertise to address patients' environmental illnesses, nor speak to prevention.MethodsEnvironmental health (EH) knowledge and skills were incorporated into the first-year medical school curriculum at Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine (Nutley, New Jersey), via a two-hour interactive large group learning module with follow up activities. Students completed the Environmental Health in Med School (EHMS) survey before and after the year 1 EH module. This survey evaluates medical students' attitudes, awareness and professionalism regarding environmental health. In year 2, students completed the Environmental Health Survey II, which measured students' perceptions of preparedness to discuss EH with future patients. The research team created both surveys based upon learning objectives that broadly aligned with the Institute of Medicine six competency-based environmental health learning objectives.Results36 year 1 students completed both the pre and post EHMS surveys. McNemar's test was used for paired comparisons. Results identified no statistically significant changes from pre to post surveys, identifying a dramatic ceiling. When comparing year 2, EHS II pre-survey (n = 84) and post-survey (n = 79) responses, a statistically significant positive change in students' self-reported sense of preparedness to discuss environmental health with their patients following the curriculum intervention was noted.ConclusionsOur conclusion for the EHMS in Year 1 was that the current generation of medical students at this school is already extremely aware of and concerned about the impact of environmental issues on health. Through the EHS II in Year 2, we found that the six-week environmental health module combining didactic and experiential elements significantly increased medical students' self-reported sense of preparedness to discuss environmental health issues, including climate change, with their patients.
| S-EPMC7796639 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Objective To report the results of a needs assessment of research and training in Medical Informatics (MI) and Bioinformatics (BI) in Latin America. Methods and results This assessment was conducted by QUIPU: The Andean Global Health Informatics Research and Training Center. After sending email invitations to MI-BI related professionals from Latin America, 142 surveys were received from 11 Latin American countries. The following were the top four ranked MI-related courses that a training programme should include: introduction to biomedical informatics; data representation and databases; mobile health; and courses that address issues of security, confidentiality and privacy. Several new courses and topics for research were suggested by survey participants. The information collected is guiding the development of curricula and a research agenda for the MI and BI QUIPU multidisciplinary programme for the Andean Region and Latin America.
| S-EPMC3208899 | biostudies-other
Project description:Systemic oppression includes inequitable education that historically does not fully prepare students for comprehensive participation in society. The tools of science education, however, uniquely enable students to explore social inequities as well as the natural world. Thus, a role of education can be to embed social justice in science curricula. Presented here are three case studies that investigate pedagogical methods used by experienced teachers to integrate social justice into upper level high-school biology curricula. Two separate semi-constructed interviews were conducted with participants, along with an analysis of their pedagogical materials. Two main themes are identified and explored: (1) delivery methods (pedagogy) and (2) biological science content. Storytelling and culturally responsive pedagogy were reported to be highly effective in engaging students; using these vehicles for delivery, social justice content can be seamlessly introduced alongside organic evolution. This embedded exploratory multiple-case study serves as an example of how science education can become a tool for student empowerment.Supplementary informationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11191-021-00287-y.
| S-EPMC8503382 | biostudies-literature
Project description:While the use of computer tools to simulate complex processes such as computer circuits is normal practice in fields like engineering, the majority of life sciences/biological sciences courses continue to rely on the traditional textbook and memorization approach. To address this issue, we explored the use of the Cell Collective platform as a novel, interactive, and evolving pedagogical tool to foster student engagement, creativity, and higher-level thinking. Cell Collective is a Web-based platform used to create and simulate dynamical models of various biological processes. Students can create models of cells, diseases, or pathways themselves or explore existing models. This technology was implemented in both undergraduate and graduate courses as a pilot study to determine the feasibility of such software at the university level. First, a new (In Silico Biology) class was developed to enable students to learn biology by "building and breaking it" via computer models and their simulations. This class and technology also provide a non-intimidating way to incorporate mathematical and computational concepts into a class with students who have a limited mathematical background. Second, we used the technology to mediate the use of simulations and modeling modules as a learning tool for traditional biological concepts, such as T cell differentiation or cell cycle regulation, in existing biology courses. Results of this pilot application suggest that there is promise in the use of computational modeling and software tools such as Cell Collective to provide new teaching methods in biology and contribute to the implementation of the "Vision and Change" call to action in undergraduate biology education by providing a hands-on approach to biology.
| S-EPMC4366374 | biostudies-literature
Project description:ObjectivesTo examine roles for summer internship programs in expanding pathways into biomedical informatics, based on 10 years of the Vanderbilt Department of Biomedical Informatics (DBMI) Summer Research Internship Program.Materials and methodsVanderbilt DBMI's internship program is a research-intensive paid 8-10 week program for high school, undergraduate, and graduate students. The program is grounded in a "Windows, Mirrors, and Open Doors" educational framework, and is guided by an evolving set of design principles, including providing meaningful research experiences, applying a multi-factor approach to diversity, and helping interns build peer connections.ResultsOver 10 years, 90 individuals have participated in the internship program, with nine students participating for more than one summer. Of 90 participants, 38 were women and 52 were men. Participants represented a range of racial/ethnic groups. A total of 39 faculty members have served as primary mentor for one or more interns. Five key lessons emerged from our program experience: Festina Lente ("Make haste slowly"), The Power of Community, Learning by Doing, Thoughtful Partnerships Lead to Innovation, and The Whole is More Than the Sum of Its Parts.DiscussionBased on our experience, we suggest that internship programs should become a core element of the biomedical informatics educational ecosystem. Continued development and growth of this important educational outreach approach requires stable funding sources and building connections between programs to share best practices.ConclusionInternship programs can play a substantial role in the biomedical informatics educational ecosystem, helping introduce individuals to the field earlier in their educational trajectories.
| S-EPMC6951956 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The Function Biomedical Informatics Research Network (FBIRN) developed methods and tools for conducting multi-scanner functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies. Method and tool development were based on two major goals: 1) to assess the major sources of variation in fMRI studies conducted across scanners, including instrumentation, acquisition protocols, challenge tasks, and analysis methods, and 2) to provide a distributed network infrastructure and an associated federated database to host and query large, multi-site, fMRI and clinical data sets. In the process of achieving these goals the FBIRN test bed generated several multi-scanner brain imaging data sets to be shared with the wider scientific community via the BIRN Data Repository (BDR). The FBIRN Phase 1 data set consists of a traveling subject study of 5 healthy subjects, each scanned on 10 different 1.5 to 4 T scanners. The FBIRN Phase 2 and Phase 3 data sets consist of subjects with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder along with healthy comparison subjects scanned at multiple sites. In this paper, we provide concise descriptions of FBIRN's multi-scanner brain imaging data sets and details about the BIRN Data Repository instance of the Human Imaging Database (HID) used to publicly share the data.
| S-EPMC4651841 | biostudies-literature
Project description:MotivationMany researchers with domain expertise are unable to easily apply machine learning (ML) to their bioinformatics data due to a lack of ML and/or coding expertise. Methods that have been proposed thus far to automate ML mostly require programming experience as well as expert knowledge to tune and apply the algorithms correctly. Here, we study a method of automating biomedical data science using a web-based AI platform to recommend model choices and conduct experiments. We have two goals in mind: first, to make it easy to construct sophisticated models of biomedical processes; and second, to provide a fully automated AI agent that can choose and conduct promising experiments for the user, based on the user's experiments as well as prior knowledge. To validate this framework, we conduct an experiment on 165 classification problems, comparing to state-of-the-art, automated approaches. Finally, we use this tool to develop predictive models of septic shock in critical care patients.ResultsWe find that matrix factorization-based recommendation systems outperform metalearning methods for automating ML. This result mirrors the results of earlier recommender systems research in other domains. The proposed AI is competitive with state-of-the-art automated ML methods in terms of choosing optimal algorithm configurations for datasets. In our application to prediction of septic shock, the AI-driven analysis produces a competent ML model (AUROC 0.85±0.02) that performs on par with state-of-the-art deep learning results for this task, with much less computational effort.Availability and implementationPennAI is available free of charge and open-source. It is distributed under the GNU public license (GPL) version 3.Supplementary informationSupplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
| S-EPMC8055228 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Expansive growth in the use of health information technology (HIT) has dramatically altered medicine without translating to fully realized improvements in healthcare delivery. Bridging this divide will require healthcare professionals with all levels of expertise in clinical informatics. However, due to scarce opportunities for exposure and training in informatics, medical students remain an underdeveloped source of potential informaticists. To address this gap, our institution developed and implemented a 5-tiered clinical informatics curriculum at the undergraduate medical education level: (1) a practical orientation to HIT for rising clerkship students; (2) an elective for junior students; (3) an elective for senior students; (4) a longitudinal area of concentration; and (5) a yearlong predoctoral fellowship in operational informatics at the health system level. Most students found these offerings valuable for their training and professional development. We share lessons and recommendations for medical schools and health systems looking to implement similar opportunities.
| S-EPMC9748535 | biostudies-literature