Biomedical Informatics Courses

Our curriculum leverages the large number of relevant courses taught on campus and supplements them with BMI courses that provide specialized domain knowledge and medical context. We emphasize courses that are project-oriented, where students learn to formulate, implement, and evaluate models within the healthcare environment. All courses at UCSD operate on a quarterly basis. All MED courses below are taught by DBMI faculty and research staff. Typical quarter in which courses as offered is coded as W(Winter), S(Spring), and F(Fall).

Required for all trainees:

• MED 262: Current Trends in Biomedical Informatics (F, W, S, 1 credit, 6 credits required): Weekly talks by researchers introduce students to current research topics within BMI. Speakers are drawn from academia, health care organizations, industry, and government. As a curriculum requirement, DBMI Ph.D. students are required to complete 6 quarters (total) of MED 262.
• MED 264: Principles of Biomedical Informatics (F, 4 credits): Students are introduced to the fundamental principles of BMI and to the problems that define modern healthcare. The extent to which BMI can address healthcare problems is explored. Topics covered include structuring of data, computing with phenotypes, integration of molecular, image and other non-traditional data types into electronic medical records, clinical decision support systems, biomedical ontologies, data and communication standards, data aggregation, and knowledge discovery.
• MED 265: Informatics in Clinical Environments (S, offered alternate years, 4 credits): Students are introduced to the basics of healthcare systems and clinical information needs through reading, online lectures/exercises and class discussion. Students are introduced to medical language, disease processes, and health care practices to provide context within primary, specialty, emergency, and inpatient sites in conjunction with clinical faculty affiliated with the training program. Students examine how clinicians use history-taking, physical examination and diagnostic testing to establish diagnoses and prognoses. Medical decision-making is introduced in the context of available informatics tools and clinical documentation and communication processes. We will also explore important topics relevant to informatics, such as population health, equity, and how patients and providers experience care delivery. The course encourages students to think critically of the processes they observe and formulate hypotheses about how informatics solutions can modify the processes.
• MED 267: Modeling Clinical Data and Knowledge for Computation (W, 4 credits): This course describes existing methods for representing and communicating biomedical knowledge. The course describes existing health care standards and modeling principles required for implementing data standards, including biomedical ontologies, standardized terminologies, and knowledge resources.

Other courses offered: