I was recently contacted about a fascinating new program at Harvard Medical School called HMX Fundamentals. I wanted to learn more, and I’m delighted to have AST listeners learn more along with me since I’m talking today to Dr. Michael Parker, Harvard Medical School’s Associate Dean for Online Learning and Faculty Director of HMX.

Dr. Parker earned his Bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT. He then worked in the software industry and studied exercise physiology at the University of Colorado. He went to medical school at the University of Colorado and did his residency in internal medicine in Boston. Today, when he’s not combining his technology and medical backgrounds to create innovative, ground-breaking educational programs, he is a practicing physician in the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at HMS. Welcome!

Can you give us an overview of HMX? [1:45]

HMX refers to foundational online courses covering medical topics for people potentially interested in careers in healthcare, or individuals who simply want to know about these topics in greater depth.

It might be useful to have some background on why Harvard and why now. About two years ago, we were going through a curriculum reform, thinking about how to get students into clinics earlier. This involved the compression of the preclinical years from two years to 14 months – the material has to go somewhere. How do we prepare students for this rapid start? We also recognize that we get students from a broad range of backgrounds – how do we level the playing field?

We were thinking about what students struggle with, and what areas are vital for the future of medical practice – such as genetics and immunology. We came up with starting with four foundational courses: Genetics, Immunology, Physiology, and Biochemistry.

We thought of a fresh approach that would be beneficial for our own students and helpful for students outside.

For the last two years, the entering class at Harvard Med has been given access to these classes.

Was there always a vision to offer this curriculum more widely? [6:05]

Yes, there was always a vision to offer it more widely – that was part of the initial brainstorming process. If we were putting in this amount of effort and care, it made sense to offer it up more widely.

What makes HMX special as an online learning experience? [7:10]

People have a concept of what online learning is – watching lecture videos, etc. There are three major differences in what we’re creating:

1. The degree of clinical applications: we go into the hospitals and film with doctors and patients in authentic settings. Student see how doctors interact with patients and use the foundational knowledge students are learning.

2. High degree of active learning. Students have to engage with the material. For example, there are over 300 assessment questions in the Immunology course – this takes advantage of learning science.

3. Rich biomedical visualizations – including graphics and animations. We want to help students understand the mechanisms.

Do these elements take the place of labs? [10:50]

There’s still a need for labs, certainly for the experiential aspect.