The Stanford Mini Med School: A Free Course Now Online

Image by King of Hearts, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

Start­ing this past fall, Stanford’s School of Med­i­cine and Stan­ford Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies (my day job) teamed up to offer The Stan­ford Mini Med School. Fea­tur­ing more than thir­ty dis­tin­guished fac­ul­ty, sci­en­tists, and physi­cians, this year­long series of cours­es (three in total) offers stu­dents a dynam­ic intro­duc­tion to the world of human biol­o­gy, health and dis­ease, and the ground­break­ing changes tak­ing place in med­ical research and health care. 250 life­long learn­ers (like your­self) attend­ed the first course on Stan­ford’s cam­pus this fall. And you can now access it on iTunes. We’ve post­ed the first two lec­tures (in video), and eight more lec­tures will soon be com­ing online. (Update: You can now find the videos on YouTube too.) Below, I’ve added the course descrip­tion for the fall course, and you can also find it list­ed in the Biol­o­gy Sec­tion of our ever-grow­ing col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es. When the win­ter and spring cours­es arrive, I’ll be sure to give you a heads up.

This Fall, the Stan­ford Mini Med School will get start­ed with a jour­ney inside human biol­o­gy. We will start by famil­iar­iz­ing our­selves with the world of very small things. We will take a close look at DNA, stem cells, and microbes, and see how these and oth­er small play­ers form the build­ing blocks of the human body. This will allow us to under­stand how human organs devel­op (and can also regen­er­ate), how our ner­vous and immune sys­tems work, and how dis­eases can afflict us. From there, the course will move beyond the indi­vid­ual and take a more glob­al view of health. How do pan­demics take shape? How does the envi­ron­ment affect our col­lec­tive health? And how can we final­ly imple­ment a health­care sys­tem that makes sense for our nation? Var­i­ous experts from the Stan­ford School of Med­i­cine will address these and oth­er big pic­ture ques­tions dur­ing the first course in the Stan­ford Mini Med School.

For a descrip­tion of the cur­rent Mini Med School course (which we will even­tu­al­ly post online) please


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Comments (31)
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  • ML Cohen says:

    Dan, I am a huge fan of your blog (it is one of the very few that I fol­low). As a Med School pro­fes­sor, I was look­ing for­ward to check­ing out the Stan­ford Mini Med School. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, my com­mit­ment to open edu­ca­tion (please see web­site, above) does not include iTunes, pre­clud­ing my abil­i­ty to ben­e­fit from this resource. I do very much enjoy those resources that I can access inde­pen­dent of iTunes. Thanks, and keep up the great work!

  • ML Cohen says:

    Dan,

    We’ve got­ten quite a num­ber of requests for audio files, as many stu­dents like to lis­ten in the car (as do I). Will there be an oppor­tu­ni­ty to access audio down­loads sans iTunes?

    Thanks again, MLC

  • Channery says:

    I read your post and wished I was good enuogh to write it

  • burhanuddin says:

    i am in Nan­garhar med­ical fac­ul­ty in sec­ond class i want to attend anato­my and phys­i­ol­o­gy free cours­es

  • burhanuddin says:

    i want to attend free anato­my and phys­i­o­gy class­es

  • Richard kwame Ahuntor says:

    i want to offer one of your free onliñe med­ical course and i just grad­u­at­ed as a physi­cian assis­tant.

  • Dr Prince Kelechi Ihekoronye says:

    Keep up with the good works. I will like to offer free cours­es in obstet­rics and gyne­col­o­gy if avail­able.

  • Ruth Williams says:

    I real­ly wish to enter ur school

  • Dr Prince Kelechi Ihekoronye says:

    THE NEED FOR IMPROVED MEDICAL CARE AND QUALITY HEALTH CARE DELIVERY TO ESPECIALLY PEOPLE IN THE THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES CANNOT BE OVER EMPHASIZED.SUCH PROGRAMS BECOME SINE QUA NON TO ENLIGHTENING HEALTH PRACTIONERS ON WAYS THIS COULD BE ACHIEVED.KEEP UP WIT THE GOOD WORKS.

  • ramana says:

    My heart­felt appre­ci­a­tion for these cours­es.
    The gen­er­ous efforts of all of you at Tuft Med
    in presenting/extending these pre­cious and
    unique gifts of knowl­edge to all the unreached
    in this world, would go a long way in enhanc­ing
    the sta­tus of health and qual­i­ty of life.Congrats!

  • ramana says:

    My heart­felt appre­ci­a­tion for these cours­es.
    The gen­er­ous efforts of all of you at Stan­ford Mini Med
    in presenting/extending these pre­cious and
    unique gifts of knowl­edge to all the unreached
    in this world, would go a long way in enhanc­ing
    the sta­tus of health and qual­i­ty of life.Congrats!

  • michael says:

    I am Michael, I dropped out of the uni­ver­si­ty at my final year I stud­ied bio­chem­istry, I wud to enroll and study some of your free med­ical cours­es

  • Jackson says:

    I would enjoy know­ing more about your Med course line-up. Any­thing to do with seniors, aging, care man­age­ment, adap­tive devices, care­giv­ing, lead­ers in their homes*

    Thanks!
    *in**@se****************************.com

  • brender dennis says:

    Would love to take this class

  • abeer abbas says:

    Please i wish to start with free med­ical school any time.

  • cynthia says:

    do keep up the good work, i want to be your stu­dent

  • rustha says:

    I WOULD LOVE TO TAKE UP THIS CLASSES ANYTIME

  • Brittany says:

    would love to take this class.

  • Michael welsh says:

    I want to be a dr

  • Eslam Elhelw says:

    I am Eslam
    med­ical stu­dent At man­soura uni­ver­si­ty in Egypt
    i want to CME Online ” Con­tin­ue med­ical edu­ca­tion ”
    i want to apply for free med­ical cours­es if avail­able .
    Thanks in advance

  • Margaret Wambugu says:

    I would like to do short online med­ical cours­es

  • B Mercy N says:

    I want to study med­i­cine but at the moment am not yet in school due to finan­cial prob­lem. I want to take part in the premed to pre­pare myself before God will­ing I start school. Pls when is the reg­is­tra­tion and how do i reg­is­ter?

  • georginia francis says:

    hi i want to do a car­di­ol­o­gist and due to finan­cial rea­sons i have not start­ed school. so pls when is reg­is­tra­tion and how do i reg­is­ter?

  • BECCA OKORIE says:

    Would realy love to be a part of this pro­gram.

  • h pisetsky says:

    Hi,

    Thanks for mak­ing the mini-med school resource avail­able online. I am also among the learn­ers who do at all not use iTunes.
    thanks for your con­sid­er­a­tion

  • nkwain linus says:

    pls i just had my advanced lev­el and i wish to have some online studies.thanks in advanced

  • Jessica Nancy says:

    Please, i would love the pre-med cours­es. I want to study der­ma­tol­o­gist or gynecologist/obstetrician but I want to pre­pare myself first. I would appre­ci­ate it if you will help me with the online class thanks.

  • Noor H says:

    I,m an aspir­ing doc­tor and inter­est­ed in the mini med­ical school cours­es. please update me on the grow­ing spe­cial­ties in medicine/surgery as well the path­way through med­ical school. What is the best track from start to end if such thing exist at all.

    Thanks.

  • Lia De Marck says:

    Hel­lo, I want to be a doc­tor a gen­er­al sur­geon actu­al­ly.

  • Amina Bello says:

    New stu­dent in med­ical

  • Kudzai says:

    1st year med­ical stu­dent need help on anato­my

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