These are also known as massive open online courses (MOOCs) and they are courses delivered online, open to all. They are usually quite short and structured courses, often delivered by university lecturers or experts in the field.They may be anywhere between a couple of hours to over 40 hours long, that you can do in a few days or over a few weeks. If they are self-paced, you get to decide how quickly or slowly you want to complete the course. The course will have a series of learning objectives that are covered each week. The content is covered in short video clips or mini lectures. These free online medical courses often also come with certificates.
There are various platforms that you can find these MOOCs, the most common ones being Coursera or Futurelearn.
This year, we know it's really difficult to secure work experience related to medicine. But there are plenty of other ways you can make your medicine application stand out, and online courses are a great way to do this from the comfort of your own home.
By doing an online course, you are showing the admissions team that:
Online courses are not necessarily a substitute for in-person work experience, but it's definitely an alternative way to strengthen your application as it's something you'll be able to discuss and reflect on in your personal statement and interview.
Here are a list of some FREE courses available to you that are relevant to healthcare and medicine. We've split them into different subsections and highlighted some of the most relevant topics they cover, but have a look on the websites to find out more information. You want to choose a course that is interesting to you, but not so intense that you'll have trouble balancing it with your other studies.
NOTE: all courses are completely free, but some may charge if you want to complete assignments for the course and get a certificate of completion. You do not need to pay for the certification as this will make no difference to your medicine application.
https://www.coursera.org/learn/healthcare-and-society
Timing: self-paced, approx 21 hours
Developed by: Tomsk State University, Russia
This course will explore how healthcare can be inaccessible or inefficient for different members of society. It will try to answer the question, "How can healthcare provision and society be bridged?"
Some of the learning objectives most relevant for you include:
Relevance to medicine: this course will be useful in showing you understand how there are different barriers to accessing healthcare, and how this affects the health of different population groups. Through this, you're able to demonstrate you are aware that medicine goes beyond treating patients, and requires a more holistic approach. You should think about how this will change the kind of doctor you want to be.
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/human-disease-understanding-causes-of-disease
Timing: 8 hours, self-paced
Developed by: University of Leeds
This course will cover how the health of a population is measured and analysed, and the different factors that contribute to poor health.
Topics explored include:
Relevance to medicine: by undertaking this course, you will learn just how complex health is, and how related it is to our upbringing and lifestyles. You will be able to understand why certain populations may be more at risk compared to others. This will reinforce why we need a holistic approach to managing patients.
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/aging-populations
Timing: 12 hours, self paced
Developed by: Keio University, Japan
This course explores the concept of healthy ageing from a scientific and healthcare perspective. It identifies the impact of social engagement in elderly and ageing populations. It explores the policies that surround age-inclusivity and how the government and communities can support their ageing society.
Topics explored on the course include:
Week 1 - What is a super-aged society?
Week 2 - Healthy ageing and healthcare service
Week 3 - Healthy ageing and social engagement
Week 4 - How to promote an inclusive society
Relevance to medicine: this course will be useful in helping you understand the challenges that come with having an ageing population, and how we can ensure the elderly live meaningful lives. It will show you have a good understanding of the problems that the NHS will face as the UK develops more of an ageing population. It also allows you to showcase your empathy towards the elderly, and recognise the challenges individuals experience as they age.
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/healthy-ageing
Timing: 3 hours per week for 3 weeks
Developed by: University of Birmingham
Topics explored include:
Relevance to medicine: in the future, as the life expectancy of our population increases, we will likely see more age-related illnesses and frailty in the NHS. It is important that we can approach ageing holistically, and learn about different interventions that can support our ageing population. This MOOC also covers different research methodologies and how it is applied to healthcare, which is important for you as you will be undertaking various research projects as a student and further on in your career. Medicine is evidence-based, therefore it is important we have a good understanding of what the research and science behind clinical medicine involves.
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/womens-and-girls-health
Timing: 4 hours per week for 4 weeks
Developed by: University of Aberdeen
Topics explored include:
Relevance to medicine: FGM has a devastating impact on mental and physical health. However, many healthcare professionals feel uneducated on the matter and as a result lack of confidence dealing with this harmful practice. It is important for doctors to treat patients holistically and therefore awareness and ability provide care to patients who have been subjected to these practices is pivotal. In addition to this, there is a legal duty for health and social care professionals, educators, and police personnel to recognise and report physical or other indicators of FGM practices. For this reason, knowledge of how to recognise and report FGM will be valuable during your time as a medical student and later in your medical career.
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/clinical-empathy
Timing: 4 hours, self-paced
Developed by: St George's, University of London
About the course: "Showing an understanding of a patient’s situation is one of the most important relationship-building skills that a healthcare provider can have. This is widely recognised in healthcare: the NHS in the UK recruits for compassion as one of its core values, and medical schools look for this in applicants at admissions interviews. This course will help you develop an empathic practice that is individualised and attuned to the needs of all patients."
Topics explored on the course include:
Relevance to medicine: this course will explore why empathy is so important to healthcare professionals, and the benefits it brings to patients. It also explores the challenges that come with being empathetic. Medical students and healthcare professionals need to be empathetic (and understand the boundaries of it) so this would be really useful in helping you understand why.
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/transgender-in-healthcare
Timing: 3 hours per week for 4 weeks
Developed by: St George's, University of London
Topics explored on the course include:
Week 1 - Introduction to transgender healthcare
Week 2 - Trans-specific healthcare considerations
Week 3 - Trans-inclusive communication and service provision
Week 4 - Culturally competent clinical communication
Relevance to medicine: as a medical student and doctor you will encounter a diverse range of patients on a day-to-day basis. It is important to tailor your approach to individual patients to provide them with the best standard of care. Healthcare professionals are often not aware of how best to approach and work with trans patients, which results in trans people receiving a lower standard of care. This course will help you better understand issues facing the trans community, provide you with skills that enable you to improve their care, and help minimise the discrimination faced by these patients in the NHS.
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/end-of-life-care
Timing: 3 hours per week for 4 weeks
Developed by: University of Glasgow
Topics explored on the course include:
Relevance to medicine: with Covid-19, thousands of people died with no control over the environment in which they passed. They often couldn’t control where they would die or who they wanted around them. In healthcare, we see many people die every day. It is important that we offer people as much control over dying as they are comfortable with and capable of and allow them to make decisions where they are able. This course explores what end of life care actually means, and the different factors to consider when we come across patients who are dying. As a medical student, you need to be compassionate and caring, and know how to offer holistic care to dying patients.
https://www.my-mooc.com/en/mooc/healthcarejobs/
Timing: 27 hours, self-paced
Developed by: Northwestern University, Illinois
This course explores the personal stories, experiences and journeys of different healthcare professionals. It helps you map a path towards a health career and identifies skills needed to be successful in it.
Topics explored include:
Week 1 - Why Health?
Week 2 - Day in the Life Snapshots - Healthcare professionals briefly describe what they do and introduce medical terminology
Week 3 - Healthcare Career Journeys - Personal stories & career journeys of health professionals and students
Week 4 - Personal Story - Packaging your personal story to increase your professional opportunities
Week 5 - Professional Networking - How to use social networks to find opportunities
Week 6 - Resume - Tips on resume writing
Week 7 - Cover Letter - Tips on writing a cover letter
Week 8 - Interviews - Communication skills and presence to stand out in an interview
Relevance to medicine: this course would be really good at answering “why medicine” as it would show why you’ve explored and ruled out other healthcare professions. It would also be really good to show that you understand the roles and values of different healthcare workers, and understand how everyone comes together as part of the multidisciplinary team. Some aspects may not be completely relevant to medicine applicants, but you can identify the parts that are most useful and try to do those weeks only.
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/the-role-of-vaccines-in-preventing-infectious-diseases-and-amr
Timing: 4 hours, self-paced
Developed by: British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy
About this course: "On this course, you will investigate the role of vaccines in preventing these diseases and explore case studies that demonstrate successful strategies. You will also appreciate the factors influencing the availability and uptake of vaccines and understand the important role they play in managing infectious diseases."
Topics explored include:
Relevance to medicine: this course is extremely relevant to Covid-19 and you definitely may be asked questions during your interview around vaccinations and antimicrobial resistance. You can use what you've learnt about running a successful vaccine campaign to reflect on the way the UK government has approached the Covid-19 vaccine campaign, thinking about both the positives and negatives.
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/infection-control-antimicrobial-resistance
Developed by: University of East Anglia
Timing: 3 hours per week for 3 weeks
Topics explored include:
Relevance to medicine: anti-microbial resistance is a global issue and impairs our ability to treat bacterial infections. As a medical student and doctor, you should be aware of ways this issue can be minimised. Understanding how infectious diseases are acquired and spread, and how this contributes to the global risk of antimicrobial resistance emphasises the importance of effective infection control measures in combatting this issue. Being able to demonstrate awareness of issues like this, and how you can play a role in combatting them, may be useful for answering questions at a medical school interview.
https://www.my-mooc.com/en/mooc/application-of-digital-health-interventions/
Timing: 8 hours, self-paced
Developed by: Taipei Medical University, Taiwan
This course will explore issues like why digital health is important and how digital health can affect our future. It will look at how digital apps can help patients change behaviour, cognition, or alleviate their pain, with a particular focus on mental health conditions.
Topics explored include:
Relevance to medicine: many aspects of healthcare are slowly but certainly going digital, and as an applicant, it is important for you to recognise this trend. This course will allow you to learn more about the impact of digital health on individuals and on healthcare as a whole, and the advantages and disadvantages it brings. By completing this course, you will show medical schools that you are clued up about how healthcare is evolving, and you can form your own opinions on whether it's good or bad.
https://www.mooc-list.com/course/healthcare-innovation-and-entrepreneurship-coursera
Timing: 12 hours, self-paced
Developed by: Duke University, North Carolina
About the course: "This interdisciplinary course focuses on sustainable innovation, introducing entrepreneurial students to the realities of problem identification and solution design within the complex world of healthcare."
Topics explored include:
Week 1 - Innovating in Healthcare
Week 2 - Finding What's Needed
Week 3 - Prioritising Needs
Relevance to medicine: this course will most likely be more technical, so I would suggest only doing it if you're particularly interested in healthcare innovation or you have an entrepreneurial mind. The most relevant lessons you will learn for your application will be about how to identify and prioritise problems in healthcare, and how to come up with a design to solve that problem. By completing a course like this, you'll show that you're not only interested in improving the health of patients, but you want to improve healthcare as a whole. This is something we call Quality Improvement and is very important in healthcare, as it's the process of checking that systems are running efficiently and looking for ways to improve it.
In short, for your medicine application, you don't need to bother paying for a certificate for your online course. In general, the main reason people get certificates is to a) prove that they've completed the course and b) some certifications offer credits which some employers value. When you're applying for university, these credits don't make a difference to your application. The key thing is that you've benefited from the course. Ideally, you should be more knowledgable about the topic, and this is the only proof you need. If you get asked about the course in an interview, you need to know what you're talking about. So no, don't be put off if there's a charge for the certificate at the end. Just complete the course, make notes throughout and reflect on what you've learnt. That will be more than enough.
You don't have to do online courses to support your medicine application, they are just one way you can show the admissions team you are keen to learn more about healthcare. If you're keen to do an online course, that's great. Be selective about the one you want to do. Here are a couple of questions you should ask yourself before choosing:
Whether it's a short course or a course that takes a few weeks, it's still taking up your time. And your time is valuable. So choose wisely.
We've tried to make it easy by compiling a list of ones we think are most relevant to medicine and healthcare, but this is not an exhaustive list. There are lots of other courses available - some that are more about particular diseases and others that are more about humanities and healthcare. These can all be valuable to your application, so if you don't like the ones from this list, have a look for something else!
If you want to do more than one course, that's fine too but don't do it for the sake of your application as it won't add that much more value. Simply do it because you're interested in the topic and want to learn more about it.
You can learn from an online course the same way you learn from lessons at school. Take clear notes, use diagrams (or take screenshots of the presentations), write summaries of the key points, and consolidate your understanding by searching anything you're not sure of. Some courses offer materials that you can use to aid your learning. The only thing I would add here is that it is very important that you reflect on what you've learnt and why it is relevant to you as a medicine applicant and a future healthcare professional.
You need to show the admissions team that the online course has actually added value to your life and your decision to study medicine.
Some key questions to ask yourself may include:
Author: Dr Latifa Haque
Updated by Allegra Wisking (March 2022)
