I’m thrilled to announce Medicine in the Digital Age, a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) focusing on health care’s analog-digital shift.  Over the past several months I’ve been working closely with my Rice University collaborator, Dr. Kirsten Ostherr, to coordinate and shape this unique online course.

Over 4 weeks, Medicine in the Digital Age will map out out the challenges and opportunities facing patients and providers in the networked age.  Intended for a general audience and relevant to anyone interested in the emerging healthcare environment, participants will come away speaking the basic language of digital medicine.

You’ll have access to originally produced interviews and discussions with leaders such as Eric Topol, Roni Zeiger, Fred Trotter, and many more.  In addition to regular interaction with Kirsten and I, we’ve recruited some of the country’s brightest young digital minds to serve as teaching assistants.  Perhaps more powerful than any individual element in the course will be the ability to connect, discuss and debate the changes currently underway in health care.  I truly believe that the forums and the social elements of our MOOC will define the experience of the learner. As a participant, your questions and conversations will help shape future versions of the course.

Medicine in the Digital Age is presented by Rice University in collaboration with Baylor College of Medicine.  It’s the first collaboration of its type between a major university and medical school.  MDA will be delivered on edX, a leader in interactive online classes and MOOCs.

Kirsten and I hope to launch a fresh conversation about what the future of medicine should be, and how we should get there.  But it will be the collective action, ideas and brilliance of you, the MDA participant, that will make this course great. Please go to edX right now and register for our May 5, 2015 start.  Best of all … IT’S FREE.

Stay tuned for more information.  Follow the conversation on Twitter with #MedDigX

Top banner image (cropped) via the National Library of Medicine.  The image immediately above depicts Bryan Vartabedian and Kirsten Ostherr taping in the Debakey Medical Museum at Baylor College of Medicine.