Course Description

WINTER 2025: WEDNESDAYS, 1:30-4:20 PM PST, IN-PERSON

Recent advances in health technologies – incorporating innovations like robotics, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and smart sensors – have raised expectations of a dramatic impact on health outcomes across the world. However, bringing innovative technologies to populations who have been traditionally underserved has proven challenging, limiting their impact and in many cases exacerbating inequities. This course explores critical questions regarding the implementation and impact of technological innovations to improve health outcomes and achieve greater health equity both domestically and globally. Through a combination of lectures, discussions, and guest lectures from thought leaders, this course considers examples of technologies that have been “successful”, as well as those that have “failed”. The course also explores the disproportionately negative impact of climate change on lower income populations, and the potential role of technology in addressing that.

MED 232 students will think critically to consider conditions under which technologies reach scale and have a positive impact on global health outcomes. Students will also have an opportunity to work on real-world projects with domestic and international organizations, each of which will focus on the potential opportunity for health technology and consider approaches to ensure its social impact at scale.

Instructors

This course will be taught by Dr. Anurag Mairal, Adjunct Professor of Medicine and the Director, Global Outreach Programs at Stanford Mussallem Center for Biodesign, Dr. Krista Donaldson, Director of Innovation to Impact at Stanford Mussallem Center for Biodesign, and Dr. Michele Barry, Senior Associate Dean for Global Health.

Sample Projects

Examples of projects that students have worked on in the past include:

• WHO Innovation Hub: A Framework for Scaling Mobile, Digitally-Enabled Clinics for Primary Health Care
• Increasing Access to Abbott’s Pediatric Transcatheter Congenital Heart Disease Devices in India for Ventricular Septal Defect
• Intuitive Foundation: Scaling SELF Model for Building Surgical Capacity in Global Health
• Enabling Health Equity Through Public-Private Partnerships & Technology (with Microsoft)

Course speakers

Speakers will include a range of voices and may include, among others: Dr. Catherine Mohr, President of the Intuitive Foundation, the corporate Foundation of Intuitive Surgical; Dr. David Rhew, Global Chief Medical Officer & VP of Healthcare, Microsoft; Dr. Richard Mackman, Vice President of Medicinal Chemistry at Gilead Sciences; Martin Dale, Director, Digital Health and Monitoring PSI Global; and Andrea Wainer, Executive Vice President, Rapid and Molecular Diagnostics, Abbott.

Student testimonials

Here are some things past students had to say about the course:

“Learned so much from interviewing global health leaders. Loved working and meeting with my teammates. Really proud of the product we came up with by the end of 10 weeks, hope to continue working on the project and publish it soon.”

“I worked on a project with Microsoft in enabling health equity with public-private partnerships. It was really great and I was even able to publish a research paper with my team.”

“Participating in the group project was one of the best group project experiences I’ve had at Stanford. This class is full of bright, committed students with wildly different backgrounds — it was incredibly valuable as an undergrad to get to learn from the PhD students and medical students in the class.”

Eligibility and Requirements

This course is open to all students, but graduate students, medical students, and undergraduate students who are in their third or fourth year are preferred. Students should have some experience in global health, health equity, technology innovation, or health technology implementation. This course is available for two or three units. Students enrolling in the course for a third unit will work on the group project described above, and have additional assignments, including an outline, presentation, and paper related to the group project.

This class counts as required coursework toward the following programs:

• Global Health Scholarly Concentration for medical students
• Human Biology Global Health Subplan Elective for undergraduate students
• Cardinal Service transcript notation – This course has been designated as a Cardinal Course by the Haas Center for Public Service. Cardinal Courses apply classroom knowledge to pressing social and environmental problems through reciprocal community partnerships. The units received through this course can be used towards the 12-unit requirement for the Cardinal Service transcript notation.

How to Apply

Students must submit an application and be selected to receive an enrollment code. Stanford affiliates have the option of auditing the course, but an application is still required.

The teaching team will review applications as they are submitted and will start sending out enrollment codes when enrollment opens for Winter Quarter. Note that applications will not be reviewed and no enrollment codes will be sent during Winter Closure – December 23^rd, 2024 – January 3^rd, 2025.

Questions can be directed to the Course Manager, Meghana Nerurkar, mnerur@stanford.edu.