title: Bridging the gap between the technological singularity and mainstream medicine: highlighting a course on technology and the future of medicine.
abstract: The "technological singularity" is defined as that putative point in time forecasted to occur in the mid twenty-first century when machines will become smarter than humans, leading humans and machines to merge. It is hypothesized that this event will have a profound influence on medicine and population health. This work describes a new course on Technology and the Future of Medicine developed by a diverse, multi-disciplinary group of faculty members at a Canadian university. The course began as a continuous professional learning course and was later established as a recognized graduate course. We describe the philosophy of the course, the barriers encountered in course development, and some of the idiosyncratic solutions that were developed to overcome these, including the use of YouTube audience retention analytics. We hope that this report might provide a useful template for other institutions attempting to set up similar programs.
authors.affiliation: University of Alberta. kim.solez@ualberta.ca.
authors.forename: Kim
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Solez
authors.forename: Ashlyn
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bernier
authors.forename: Joel
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Crichton
authors.forename: Heather
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Graves
authors.forename: Preeti
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kuttikat
authors.forename: Ross
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Lockwood
authors.forename: William F
authors.initials: WF
authors.lastname: Marovitz
authors.forename: Damon
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Monroe
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pallen
authors.forename: Shawna
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pandya
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pearce
authors.forename: Abdullah
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Saleh
authors.forename: Neelam
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sandhu
authors.forename: Consolato
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sergi
authors.forename: Jack
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tuszynski
authors.forename: Earle
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Waugh
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: White
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Woodside
authors.forename: Roger
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Wyndham
authors.forename: Osmar
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Zaiane
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zakus
mesh_terms: D001185:Artificial Intelligence; D020811:Biomedical Technology / Q000379:methods*; D005544:Forecasting; D006801:Humans; D008511:Medicine / Q000379:methods*; D061108:Social Media