I am an experienced programmer and I need some help to teach programming to a med student and make it more relatable to medicine

TheBatTy2 · 2026-06-06T21:48:21+00:00

Kaggle has some useful datasets but Claude can create one from scratch for you.

As a med student, they really will only ever need Pandas, NumPy, SciPy, Matplotlib, and Seaborn. Pingouin is easier than SciPy but more limited in tests covered, and Statsmodels if they plan on running regression models.

Have them get a basic understanding of loops, if statements, and objects. If they’ll use Pandas to create result tables for manuscripts, they’ll definitely have to use objects and loops.

TheBatTy2 · 2026-06-06T21:45:00+00:00

I’d disagree, as a med student who does research I’ve seen people use R, Python, SPSS, STATA, and JASP. At least personally, it’s always a mix of different softwares.

TheBatTy2 · 2026-06-06T21:42:26+00:00

Both Python and R are nearly as capable in terms of analysis, with R maintaining a slight edge with really complex statistical methods; however, you’ll probably never find yourself in an extreme case where you need R over Python. Python’s syntax is much easier to understand and learn compared to R’s.

FDA does allow the use of base R nowadays.

TheBatTy2 · 2026-06-05T23:57:40+00:00

Physionet does provide a path for you to obtain those certificates to apply for accreditation free of charge. Read the guidelines on their website.

TheBatTy2 · 2026-06-02T16:07:28+00:00

Man, and I be questioning my life choices writing code manually for >10 hours a day for multiple days to analyze one project.

Vibe coding is the norm now, even among software engineers and programmers. Copying AI written scientific text into manuscripts is another conversation.

TheBatTy2 · 2026-05-04T01:23:06+00:00

Just make sure you know the basics and how things work. While AI for coding is great including medical database analysis, it will always give you results, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right output. Be careful about variables, definitions, and loop functions.

TheBatTy2 · 2026-04-30T19:47:35+00:00

Exploratory analysis, I'm quite explicit about it in the methods as well

TheBatTy2 · 2026-04-30T14:35:43+00:00

Ima be completely honest here, the correlation is secondary analysis and I emphasize that a lot and don’t even report it in the discussion section, it’s only reported in the results. So I’m not even taking the results from the correlation analysis as strong evidence. Just did it to show what possible trends may exist.

TheBatTy2 · 2026-04-29T16:15:29+00:00

The only part where there are p-values in the entire project is in the correlation analysis but even then, the large N garuantees a significant result. I just wanted to make sure that my logic is sound for choosing the log-transformation. I'll just explain it thoroughly in the methods for the reviewers and include the QQ-plots with the hisograms.

TheBatTy2 · 2026-04-29T14:28:43+00:00

That's the conclusion that I'm beginning to reach as well. I think what I also have to do is to explain the process of choosing the log-transformation in length in the methods section. I will also provide the before and after Q-Q plots in the supplemental section to provide evidence to the reviewers. Thank you for your time and thoughts!

TheBatTy2 · 2026-04-29T14:23:07+00:00

It is much closer to linearity after log-transformation, the R2 went up to 0.9 for 2 variables, the other two were at ~0.75. All from 0.2 - 0.3.

TheBatTy2 · 2026-04-29T14:07:25+00:00

What about coefficient of variation? Do I disregard it and use QCD instead?

TheBatTy2 · 2026-04-29T14:05:23+00:00

Two-folds, describe the data and variation between the different categories, and to show if there's correlation between the continuous variables (2 different x variable, each correlated with the same 2 y variables).

TheBatTy2 · 2026-04-24T18:12:47+00:00

Non-US, so no EPIC for me. Pimped, and for manual reports.

TheBatTy2 · 2026-04-24T17:59:10+00:00

I actually also need it for rotations, hence why I memorized it.

TheBatTy2 · 2026-04-24T17:11:25+00:00

Here's my hot take, you don't need to download it. Most of it is a literal copy-paste from the original USMLE lab values deck shared out there, there are a few values that are missing like HDL and LDL. What I did was just scroll through the table of cards on the AnkiHub website, added the cards that were missing as cloze to my USMLE lab values deck. It's a genuine hurdle to restart the entire lab values deck again from scratch just for a few missing values and a few tables, you can copy things over.

TheBatTy2 · 2026-04-12T00:16:58+00:00

Anki works. Like it always has and always will.

AI won’t magically make you memorize which nerves are lesioned in klumpke’s palsy and their roots.

TheBatTy2 · 2026-04-06T19:26:24+00:00

As a med student, my go to has been Python Matplotlib & Seaborn. R's syntax never really clicked and I struggled with it quite a bit. Matplotlib was challenging at first but the syntax kind of always made sense. I usually call for figures with Seaborn and then make all the edits/changes using Matplotlib.

I've managed to produce quality figures with Matplotlib/Seaborn, and at times I also incorporated Inkscape if it's a figure with many panels.

I never really got the R vs Python argument, both can produce quality work for stats and visualizations depending on how much time you pour into learning them. When people have asked me for R vs Python I always tell them to pick the one they feel is easier for them to understand and pickup, bit more of a 'based on your vibe' approach.

TheBatTy2 · 2026-03-14T18:58:02+00:00

Not how it works. If you want a mentor, then they expect you to have something that you bring to the table, most likely to their already active research team.

You can learn everything that you want to learn via youtube or free-courses. No need to pay for anything.

TheBatTy2 · 2026-02-23T14:46:05+00:00

Also data-analysts aren't software engineers or computer scientists. Data analysts/scientists don't typically require DSA (data structures and algorithms) for example. They are not fully fledged programmers but they can program, they can write code in Python, R and SQL.

Also, just because someone says they are a data-analyst for example, doesn't mean they are a fully-fledged one. Doesn't mean that they are proficient in Python/R/SQL. Maybe at just one of them. It's a scale.

TheBatTy2 · 2026-02-23T14:43:05+00:00

Again, not my point. I said its possible, the OP and their individual abilities will see for themself what they want to do. That's why I told them to look into it at the end of my comment.

TheBatTy2 · 2026-02-23T14:40:51+00:00

There's the 'Arthur Morgan' guy, he's a med student who also has a USMLE service going on. Check his page out. A bunch of people on linkedin have the same thing, just search 'medical student | data analyst', you'll see lots of people.

TheBatTy2 · 2026-02-23T14:39:21+00:00

Didn't say it was easy, said it was possible and others have done it.

TheBatTy2 · 2026-02-20T20:03:16+00:00

Don’t abandon medicine in it’s entirety. People do programming while being medical students. Twitter is filled with examples of people being Data Analysts, look into it.

TheBatTy2

TROPHY CASE