Ask HN: Career shift to a biomedical interdisciplinary field?

#1

Post by atomic77 » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 3:01 AM UTC

Like many of you out there, I imagine this period of social distancing and self-quarantine has produced a fair bit of reflection. Perhaps the worst part of watching the crisis unfold is feeling like I have nothing to contribute apart from an order to sit on my couch and not infect others. I've become addicted to the excellent MedCram videos put out by Dr. Seheult on the ongoing pandemic and find myself excited about a new and important frontier of knowledge that I haven't felt in a long time. If only we'd all listened to Bill Gates years ago.

For the fullstack developers, data engineers and devops specialists among us, with perhaps a computer science or engineering background, where are some of the most promising areas in the biomedical sciences that we could realistically transition to mid-career? What would the employment prospects be? What (online) courses would you enroll in to start getting the necessary background?

Re: Ask HN: Career shift to a biomedical interdisciplinary field?

#2

Post by EmilioMartinez » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 3:42 AM UTC

For a while now (before all this) I got interested in the phenomenon of societies that have been pushed too hard, how it plays out and what can be done to mitigate it. This of course applies to all types of crisis, each being its own beast, but in every case someone needs think quickly and keep the lights on. I get the feeling that a lot of capable people are starting to notice design flaws in society, and I hope this kickstarts the field of societal stability. We should not take the mechanisms of civilization for granted.

Re: Ask HN: Career shift to a biomedical interdisciplinary field?

#3

Post by atomic77 » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 4:39 AM UTC

EmilioMartinez wrote: post #2

For a while now (before all this) I got interested in the phenomenon of societies that have been pushed too hard, how it plays out and what can be done to mitigate it. This of course applies to all types of crisis, each being its own beast, but in every case someone needs think quickly and keep the lights on. I get the feeling that a lot of capable people are starting to notice design flaws in society, and I hope thi…

We're about to get quite the stress test.

It feels like we're living through an accelerated version of the disintegration of the western Roman empire. In a matter of a few weeks, decades worth of globalisation has screeched to a halt. It's hard to imagine the borders reopening to anything like their pre-COVID-19 state until a treatment is found or a vaccine.