Putting Computers to Work : Medical Students Enter High-Tech Age

John Bennett is learning how to use a computer for medical guidance after he graduates from the Ohio State University College of Medicine in a couple of years.

So is Nancy Moore, but she is more impressed with using computers for patient and data management than clinical purposes. She expects that in the near future computer courses will be mandatory for students in the Ohio State University College of Medicine.

Right now there are few courses and little class time available for computer study in the medical college. Gordon C. Black hopes to change that.

Needed in Professions

Bennett and Moore are among a growing number of medical students who find courses on computers elsewhere in the university system so they can prepare to use them in their professional careers.

University personnel are developing several computer programs that may help some of the 900 current medical students as well as practicing physicians in researching medicine.

One developed by Black, a program manager in preventive medicine, is dubbed a “Black Bag” program. He also has developed a medical bulletin board, a nationwide system promoted as a place to exchange information among members of the medical profession.

Another program is called DXplain, developed with the support of the American Medical Assn. and distributed through a nationwide communications network sponsored by AMA and Massachusetts General Hospital’s Continuing Education Network.

Numerous Programs

They are among numerous health and wellness programs developed by medical professionals that Black promotes and contributes to.

He describes his Black Bag program as “a forum for the exchange of information by electronic mail.” It is available to medical people nationwide and solicits input from any who want to report unusual diagnoses, medical problems or papers they prepare. Black estimates that 1,000 or more points nationwide have access to it, including a number of medical schools. He is now working to get the system into hospital emergency rooms.

Subjects run the gamut of medical knowledge, from interpreting arterial blood gases and AIDS data to assistance with urinalysis, calculating the focal length of eyeglass lenses and developing programs for helping pregnant patients.

Dr. James Hutchison Williams, associate dean of students in the medical college, says there are no computer courses per se in the college nor any in the medical curriculum, but that they are offered elsewhere in the university.

Part of Curriculum?

“This is something that is being looked at by the curriculum committee; whether there will be time carved out of the (medical) program for computer study,” he said.

He says some physicians already use computers for business operations and many others use them for medical research.

Moore thinks computer courses for medical students will soon be mandatory, and Bennett notes that national board examinations for medical students are to be offered on computers during this academic year.

Daniel Sands, a fourth-year medical student at Ohio State, taught himself about computers in high school and took courses in computer operation during his undergraduate studies at Brown University.

‘Sky Is the Limit’

“The sky is the limit for computer use,” Sands said. “There are just so many facets to using the computer in medicine; just to keep records in the office, for reference, for diagnostic and clinical use. A physician can use it to help write a diagnosis. . . . A doctor can computerize himself to optimize his personal and professional life.”

“Right now there are three occasions in the OSU curriculum for students to get computer training,” Black said. “There is a mini-module course (of four classes on computer use), a clinical rotation into the Department of Preventive Medicine, and a geriatrics clinical rotation.” None are required courses.

Moore, a transfer from the University of Texas, sees a future for computers in diagnostics and as an aid in clinical decision making.

She demonstrated with a program on hypertension and high blood pressure that noted the need for a patient history, physical examination and results of laboratory tests, then displayed on a video screen a list of possible causes, such as renal disease and an intercranial aneurysm.

“It looks at the observations you enter and then gives a list of possible causes, and the chances that they may occur,” she said. Her computer screen showed that kidney disease would be found in two of seven hypertension patients, malignant hypertension in two out of three cases, and that increased intercranial pressure would occur in almost every patient.

Sands, Bennett and Moore all think they will have a computer for office use once they begin medical practice.