Lambda School isn’t really software; we spent the first 18 months writing little to no code while we focused on building a world class school.

Now, of course, we’re using software to scale everything and data science to measure and optimize everything, but the core engine is a really great school and instructional design we created from the ground up, not code.

OP was speaking less about software and more about tech startup culture. Theranos comes to mind. Shoddy MVPs work well for consumer software but are dangerous in the medical field where the results could be life or death. The question is how can existing processes help/hurt a transition to medical field or will it require a radically different approach that doesn't gain from existing expertise (or at least without thorough consideration).

There are just as many companies in Silicon Valley that do biotech right. Theranos didn’t struggle because of “Silicon Valley Culture,” it struggles because of fraud and outright lies.

I wish you the best of luck in doing this well. The profession of nursing is live-critical important, and incredibly demanding.

Completely agree. I don’t want medical practitioners who finished a medical bootcamp last week googling best practices on their phones and pretending to know what they’re talking about while I’m sedated in the OR.

Hah, you think medical practitioners aren't already googling best practices right after they step out of the exam room...

You GP most likely searches WebMD... general practitioners and internal medicine is pretty much knowing what to search for no human can have all that knowledge in their head readily accessible.

For example when a doctor asks you if you travelled recently they aren’t going to know which contagious diseases are local to where you visit. So if you tell them you went to Belize they’ll open https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/destinations/traveler/none/beli... and see if anything there matches your symptoms.

For surgeons it’s mostly practice, practice and practice on how to cut you up and stitch you back together in the cleanest and fastest way possible.

>googling best practices on their phones

That's what all of those medical texts in hospital offices are for. Instead of Google, pull text off the shelf with some notes or annotations.

They... uh... already are. A lot of the time.

First aid is a bit like a medical bootcamp.

> You don't want your ER nurse to be smug about how smart they are, while they do shoddy work with fad tools and halfwitted cargo cult processes.

Unfortunately, this may already be the case with people who graduate from medical assistant and physician assistant schools. From what I hear from doctors is that the quality of these graduates are sub-par. They are usually confident in their medical knowledge while repeatedly failing to show the conscientiousness needed to practice medicine without harm.

Wow, lots to unpack here. First off, MAs are not remotely comparable to PAs or physicians. MAs typically earn a certificate, and salary is 20-30k. They are typically office or clerical workers with a medical support role. They are not diagnosticians or prescribers, like physicians, PAs, or NPs are. So talk of MAs 'practicing medicine' is weird, they don't, that's not the job role. We need them, they aren't well paid... nice work punching down there mate.

Frankly, this comment just sounds like you have an axe to grind with PAs. (Hence conflating MAs with PAs.)

PA is a Master's degree. They diagnose, treat, and prescribe. Unlike MDs, who are board-certified independent practitioners, PAs are not trained to work independently but as part of a team. In some cases that means they function as physician extenders, freeing up physicians to focus on more complicated cases. In other areas they focus on tasks delegated to them, for example central lines or other procedures, wound care. Some are used as First Assists in surgery, others are used for pre and postsurgical care, which helps surgeons do more surgeries. In any case, while the roles for physicians and PAs are much more similar, the condescension remains in your comment.

Punching down on MAs is inconceivably poor form. Punching down on PAs is still bad. Conflating the two gives away your game. You suggest harm... have any evidence to back this up?

Hint: you won't find any. There aren't a ton of studies, and quality could be better, but mid-levels (NPs and PAs) who stay within their roles have comparable outcomes to physician colleagues. How can this be, given the difference in training time? Easy. The roles are different. The subset of pts managed by PAs/NPs is different than MDs, because professionals consult and transfer care when appropriate. It's no different than a family practitioner or hospitalist consulting specialists. Nobody does everything, healthcare is a team effort.

Trash talking other professions, especially without evidence, is unprofessional.

Your entire critique depends on whether the person you're responding to can't differentiate MA from PA. This person is reporting that doctors have told him that MA and PA's somehow aren't being well trained, and they're also reporting a sense of smugness.

So do you think this person is lying or not? Did these conversations in fact take place? That's the more basic question to ask first.

You hear this from doctors because they are the ones who are smug and most likely feel their professions are threatened.

To be more fair, you hear "these shoddy youths!" from the incumbents in almost all fields. I guess this is mainly from the fact that newcomers always lack experience.

Or because incumbents are always threatened by newcomers.

yep yep yep. people in software are _incredibly_ arrogant in thinking that their approach works for other industries, when tech is really an outlier compared to most fields.