A free course by an assistant professor from India at Taipei Medical University has attracted more than 3,000 registrations one week after going online, mainly from the US and Europe.
The university teamed up with FutureLearn, the largest free online course platform in Europe, to offer courses by several of its professors. Among them, Shabbir Syed-Abdul’s class “Social Media in Healthcare: opportunities and challenges,” was one of the most popular.
Syed-Abdul said that information on the Internet has its pros and cons, and many people believe everything they read online. Teaching people to discern correct information is one thing that modern medical staff must pay attention to, he said.
He also said that the Internet can be used to upgrade a patient’s understanding of the fight against a disease.
For example, he once invited a patient to attend his class. The man was suffering from kidney cancer and doctors had advised him to undergo surgery to remove the lesions or to undergo chemotherapy, but by browsing online information he was able to find that interferon was an effective treatment.
Syed-Abdul first studied medicine in Russia. He then received a master’s degree in Norway before obtaining his doctoral degree at National Yang Ming University in Taipei.
He said that he loves living in Taiwan, describing it as a safe place.
He feels he can go out at night without fear, and even count his money on the street, which he said is not possible in the US or India.
He said that he finds Taiwanese students to be shy and not very confident when expressing themselves.
He thinks that expressing oneself in English might be a problem for Taiwanese students and they need to practice expressing their views in English.
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