I am non-native English speaker, MD, family guy and self-teaching programmer. I do not have formal education in computer science and I wrote my first program* at the age of 25.
I developed a great interest in coding recently. It seems perfect fit for my hyperactive, impatient, dyslexic-like character. Why coding is so great was excellently described by @jsomers:
Computers are really fast; even in the ’80s they were really fast. What that means is there is almost no time between changing your program and seeing the results. That short feedback loop is mentally very powerful. Every few minutes you get a little payoff — perhaps a small hit of dopamine — as you hack and tweak, hack and tweak, and see that your program is a little bit better, a little bit closer to what you had in mind.
I graduated at the Faculty of Medicine. Medicine is rewarding profession. You help people and relieve their pain. However, it can be also boring. I am wondering how can these two, medicine & coding be combined.
New interest of coding did not develop overnight. Firstly, I did not even bother to think about it. It seemed to difficult and crazy for someone with MD degree. Thanks to encouraging words from @Oscarbralo , @tommyrva and @ruby_engineer I decided to give it a (serious) try so I started to code in Python.
If teacod.com will suddenly shut down it is because I gave up.
*print(“Hello world”)
If you are in the states you should check out this program called Hacker School : https://www.hackerschool.com/ . They are looking for people exactly like you.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hey,
yes I heard about Hacker School being the best of this kind. I am from Europe.
What about Bloc or Coder Camps ? They have online courses as well.
LikeLike
I’ve never heard of those camps. You can check out codeacademy.com .Everything is free the have courses like html, css, python, ruby and more. That is where I started learning how to code.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Codecademy is great learning site for beginners. I am using it for Python and will move to HTML&CSS as well.
LikeLiked by 1 person
If you are interested in learning HTML5/CSS3/JavaScript, I highly recommend the Microsoft Virtual Academy jump start course at http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/training-courses/learn-html5-with-javascript-css3-jumpstart-training
It assumes basic knowledge, such as html, head, body, div, p tags, as well as basic css like applying a color or font-size. Although these Microsoft courses move fairly quickly, they do a good job of explaining things.
LikeLike
Thank you, I will surely expand my resource list according to your suggestions.
LikeLike
Pingback: Quora
Hi there, i like that )) I’m myself a medical student, I believe in the soon future there will be alot of ideas to combine programming and medicine!!
keep it up and never give up dock ))
LikeLiked by 1 person
I appreciate your encouragment.
Wish you lots of fun and success with your coding. Keep us updated.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Živjo, js mam enak ‘problem’ kot ti. Koda ali stetoskop 🙂 Tud js sm še v procesu učenja kodiranja (HTML, CSS, Javascript, Python, C), in v šrocesu študija medicine. Ni pa veliko dr.med./programerjev, tko da bi lahko interese združl. Lahko me kontaktiraš, če si za.
Stay hungry, stay foolish
LikeLiked by 1 person
Živjo,
Mi lahko pises na:
aleksandar[dot]gavri[at]gmail[dot]com
LikeLiked by 1 person
“It seems perfect fit for my hyperactive, impatient, dyslexic-like character.” Love this. Think I identify. 😀
LikeLike
Thank you for kind answer. Great to know there are active like-minded people around.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Impressive ‘About’ article my friend. Just wanted to say thank you for kindly visiting and following
Regards
Bob
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hello Bob,
Thank you for your kind comment.
Wish u happy blogging,
Alex
LikeLike
Ditto
LikeLiked by 1 person
Python is a great starting language and has many useful libraries. Your domain knowledge in medicine puts you in a strong position to investigate data science, including machine learning and expert systems. I think you may find some of your doctor skills – debugging symptoms, understanding human (nature), and persistent discipline – will help you get through programming. It is a lifelong learning experience for sure. Thanks for the like!
LikeLike
Hello,
your comment is very motivational. Data will possibly improve our medical knowledge (easier studies with ‘bigger data’).
Thank you again for your nice comment.
Best of luck,
Alex
LikeLike