What should I learn next?
I usually take time each holiday season to think about what to learn over the next year.
This year, I have decided to ask, publicly, for advice on what to learn.
I have always had personal learning activities related to work that keep stretching me. My learning program is meant to be fun and – at the same time – useful. It provides some additional direction into areas that I would want to extend myself to know about or apply. It complements my “required reading” for the various projects, papers, and books I am working on as part of my normal work.
When I was an animator, my personal projects would stretch me in areas I had not animated before, for example. Since medical school, my personal learning program has included: learning about leadership and leaders, adult learning techniques, public speaking and presentation skills, user interface patterns, management techniques, and even how comic books work(1).
There are many areas that I could pursue that I am interested in. Some include (in no order):
- Visual Thinking / Visual Modelling Research in Healthcare
- Prototyping and GUI Design Methods / Best Practices / Tools
- Learn a modern programming language
- Do a deep dive into to some Health Information Standards / Models
- Focus more on various management and leadership methods
I thought it might be interesting to pose the question to those that know me and see where you think I should spend my learning time. You can recommend topics, specific books, resources, courses, or conferences.
I’d love suggestions that start with something like “It would be amazing if you…” or “Imagine having more…” or “You are good at X, and Y would really will take you to the next level”. You could even add a few extra bits like “It would be fun because…” and “You’d find it useful because…” You can make suggestions based on past experience (“If only Morgan was better at X”) or future trends (“Personalized Health 3.0 is the next big thing”).
Please feel free to post a comment. I am really looking for ideas from you.
I will, in return, record my learnings here on the blog as I go.
Thanks,
– Morgan
PS – And YES! Before you say it, I will most definitely be spending time with my family this year and learning what I need about being a good father. This question is just focused on my own, quiet, learning time when everyone is sleeping.
PPS – Feel free to register under a fake name / email if you are not comfortable using a name I would recognize.
1. I highly recommend “Understanding Comics” by Scott McCLOUD as a place to start. I read it only last year.
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Hi Morgan,
Interesting idea for a blog. Even more interesting is the list you have is close to my own. FOr what it is worth here are my thoughts.
* Visual Thinking / Visual Modeling Research in Healthcare
Agree, after all a picture is worth a 1000 words
* Prototyping and GUI Design Methods / Best Practices / Tools
these things keep changing. I tried Smalltalk about 20 years ago. There are new tools now but the really nice ones are always $500 or more. Look at ‘traceability’ as a feature. What is really lacking at Infoway is a way to seamlessly link specific items in use cases, to requirements listed in standards documents, to UML diagrams to applications.
* Learn a modern programming language
This is probably too detailed unless you have the right mentality for it.
* Do a deep dive into to some Health Information Standards / Models
There actually not too many that would be of interest to a clinician; ISO 18308, 13606, 10781
* Focus more on various management and leadership methods
This is a key one because it seems so hard to get things going. Mike Bainbridge made a point about how when there is an industrial accident with a few deaths rules get changed and are implemented very quickly. Yet in the healthcare field thousands die and nothing changes.
R
20 Dec 09 at 10:26 am
I appreciated your recommendation to read “Good to Great” and so under “Management and leadership methods” I would recommend three books. The single book that may have the biggest impact on me (over and above that it’s my most recent read) is “Nudge” (nudges.org) which makes clear why we make poor choices, and how we could make (or better help people to make) better ones. Their premises of “liberal paternalism” and “choice architecture” should garner more attention than what they’ve gotten. Over and above these, I would recommend – to people who would serve on Boards – books by Carver and Garratt as linked from something I am writing at http://docs.google.com/View?id=dhms34ft_56hg6h3jf8
Jim B
20 Dec 09 at 3:27 pm
Morgan, here are some suggestions as you are heading into the next phase of your career-related endeavors …
Given your clinical and informatics expertise, I think it would be great if you can get into design, implementation and evaluation of data, messaging and terminology standards. Right now there is a shortage of expertise who are well versed in SNOMED CT, HL7, OpenEHR, archetypes, ontologies, etc.
Yes there are people who are experts with some of these standards but not enough to be able to design and deploy workable systems linking these standards, then evaluating how they are used and what impact they have on patient care.
Francis Lau
21 Dec 09 at 4:51 pm
Hi Morgan, I just came across this image that might provide you some general guidance:
* http://www.flickr.com/photos/bud_caddell/3592960452/
I don’t think you can go wrong learning more about management/leadership methods and how to communicate their importance and usefulness to folks working on projects in clinical informatics domains.
On the more fun side, it might be interesting to learn more about the emerging world of personal informatics tools/devices and how they are beginning to intersect with personal health records. The Quantified Self blog is an interesting starting point:
* http://www.quantifiedself.com/
Mike
22 Dec 09 at 4:45 pm
Thank you everyone for the comments and suggestions so far — even those who have responded privately by email.
Thanks for the “Nudge” — a bought that book and it has been a few books below on the old reading pile for a while. I’ll move it up.
Using Mike’s flickr link is always an interesting guide. Zen habits also posted recently on Focus and Passion:
http://zenhabits.net/2009/12/how-passion-and-focus-will-rock-your-career/
I support the passion part, but also think there is value in pulling two things, uniquely, together.
Thank you again — anyone else with thoughts you’re willing to share?
priceless
23 Dec 09 at 8:01 am
Gosh, what to learn?! I’m usually looking to, at best, copy what you were doing five years previously. If I could tell you what to learn, then that would mean I had entered some kind of time vortex where I had seen the future before you had time to learn it, then let the requisite five years pass before I would see it. The mind reels…
So, what to learn? Well, maybe you might want to learn more about iPhone apps (there’s a nifty course from Stanford online). Or you could learn how medical informatics will be embraced in the new US health care system. Or, you could read a book “Lean Hospitals” from a classmate of mine (and a topic I’m secretly in love with) regarding applying lean manufacturing to hospitals.
Or, you could learn how to make bronze sculptures, or woodworking. Or learn how to play a guitar (or at least, learn how to figure out Garage Band – I wish I could).
Or, you could figure out how to publish a book and become the next Dr. Oz.
Maybe you might want to look into the next TED conference in Vancouver?
Hmm…
Aaron
24 Dec 09 at 11:54 am