Programming for physicians: A crash course.

In a previous article, I explained why physicians might want to learn computer programming.[3] Afterwards I received many email messages by medical students and residents asking for advice on how to proceed. They showed interest in computer programming, and some of them were already doing this in one way or another. It also got a little press attention, which demonstrates that the “programming physician” is considered as an exception. From a historic perspective, this is understandable: Computers have not been an essential part in our training and profession. But to quote one of Steve Jobs’ favorite songs, written by Bob Dylan: “The Times They Are A Changin’.” If you are currently in medical education or residency, you are aiming at a career for the next 40 years. In those years, computer skills will be as much a requirement as your medical skills. Obviously, the question is to what extent. In the editorial I referred to the above, I compared the number of years it takes to get the knowledge and skills that you have with the time it takes to get some basic skills in programming. Frankly, it is just learning another language – and you do not even have to learn that much, as part of the vocabulary (called “variables”) is up to you.

You may have heard of “Big Data” or maybe even “The Internet Of Things.” Both refer to the fact that the amount of data we are accumulating rises exponentially at levels beyond our imagination. It has been said that in today's world, we produce more data each year than humanity produced from the stone ages through the year 2000, combined. The main challenge will be to TRANSLATE DATA INTO INFORMATION, because “data” and “information” are far from equivalent. Data science is the field that is concerned with this challenge, and combines the fields of mathematics, statistics/machine learning, and computer programming. All software tools, which are suitable for handling large amounts of data, require some extent of programming. Part of these are open-source, completely free to use, and they have large user communities online that can help you to get going. Well-known examples are Python and R. Figure 1 shows an infographic that outlines the field of data science.

Figure 1

Infographic outlining the field of Data Science. Image courtesy of DataCamp.com, reproduced with permission

It is exactly this field of data science that is of interest for physicians. We may not be the sort of professionals developing electronic health records, although I know a Dutch pediatrician (Casper Bollen) who developed a sophisticated electronic prescription system.[1] I met a neurosurgeon in Milan (Francesco Cardinale) who programmed a highly automated workflow for coregistering magnetic resonance maging (MRI) and angiography to improve surgical planning for stereotactic electroencephalography (SEEG).[2] Why wouldn’t you work with code to simplify tasks or advance current research?

Now you may have some experience with statistics, or learned some math in high school, but “programming” sounds like an activity just for young men with a ponytail and earring, right? No, wrong! It is just a next level in working with computers. For those who are over 40 years of age, just think back to the (good?) old days when you were typing commands in DOS or a Unix terminal to get things going. Programming is closely related to those commands, just with a little more background knowledge.

Starting January 2, we will begin offering an open-access programming course aimed at physicians. In 12 lessons, which will take 30–60 min each, you will get the fundamentals of programming. It is more than sufficient you get to going, and short enough to “just jump into.” It will give you an idea of what this programming stuff is all about, and whether your appetite for more (or spoil it forever, maybe). Feel free to join us at ProgrammingForPhysicians.com or ProgrammingForDoctors.com