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Welcome Video to Mini Medical School!

Watch John Cohen explain more about what you can expect to learn and discover as you walk through this three week MiniMed course!
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Hi! I’m John Cohen. Welcome to the first of the two courses in the University of Colorado Mini Medical School program at FutureLearn!
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We approach medicine the way medical schools typically do: we begin with the basic science that underlies the clinical practice of medicine. You’ll learn how normal anatomy and physiology can become abnormal; abnormal physiology is called pathophysiology. No matter what your background is, you might learn things you never thought you could understand. We want you to develop confidence in your ability to understand what your healthcare providers are telling you, and to ask them the right questions, so that you become an equal partner with them in making decisions about sickness and health.
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As we work through the human body systems, we’ll progress from the basic fundamentals to the latest medicines and treatments, some of which represent revolutions in how we think about human biology. In the second course we’ll talk about infectious disease, including immunology, which is my special subject, we’ll talk about neuroscience, and then finally cancer, the emperor of all maladies.
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YOU MAY BE ASKING: Can I handle all this? Yes you can! Since the Mini Medical School started in 1989 as a course of evening talks, to today, tens of thousands of people have taken it, from school kids to librarians to health care workers to retired folks,
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and they’ve told us: It worked for them. If you want to see what a career in health care might be like; if you want to know more about a specific medical problem; if you want an update on things you learned a long time ago; or, if you just love to learn, and want to join a community of like-minded people, we welcome you to the Mini Medical School!

The Mini Medical School is a 3-week course that offers an introduction to medical science. As we discuss the science, we give as much clinical relevance as possible, because when you learn something, it is most satisfying to know why you are learning it! And we always mention how things go wrong, too. By the end of this course, you should be able to:

  • Explore how to talk productively with a health care provider by asking for conversations in everyday language.

  • Discuss how to make well-informed decisions about illness, wellness, and life-style choices.

  • Investigate reliable and up-to-date medical information to assist making better health decisions in the future.

  • Identify different anatomical and physiological processes and associated diseases.

  • Summarize the symptoms of diseases that impact the anatomical and physiological health of a patient.

  • Reflect on the information gained in this course and how it will impact your interaction with medical professionals in the future.

We hope you enjoy! Start with week one in which we start to explore our human anatomy and physiology!

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Mini Medical School: Introduction to Medical Science

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FutureLearn - Learning For Life

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