Distance Ed

Harvard HMX Offers Dose of Medical School Training in Online Format

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 05/05/17

Harvard University is issuing certificates for anybody who passes one or more of the same online courses that are also taken by incoming students prior to starting their Harvard Medical School curriculum and used by the institution's faculty to "flip" their classrooms.

The courses make up the university's new "HMX" program, consisting of online instruction for medical education. The HMX classes each last 10 weeks and cover physiology, immunology, genetics and biochemistry. Rather than using "traditional lectures and PowerPoint slides," these programs introduce real-world scenarios, animation, concept videos, notetaking guides, assessments, interactive components and videos that take participants into clinical settings.

The price of each course is $800, or $1,000 when taken two at a time, or $1,800 when all four are taken simultaneously. To get a taste of the experience, the university is granting free access to lessons from the immunology and physiology courses.

Harvard's idea is that the courses will be useful for anybody considering a career in medicine or healthcare or "curious learners" with backgrounds in biology, chemistry and physics who want to learn more. The school isn't giving academic credit for the HMX course; but those who complete a course at a certain level of proficiency will earn either a certificate of achievement or a certificate of completion.