Health and Medicine-Correct, Revise and KEEP!

How can we help?

Ellen Shaller

July 10, 2020 14:49
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My student, a 15-year old boy with severe dyslexia, and I had a teachable moment this morning. As part of our morning greeting, we talked about exercise which led to a discussion about muscles and bones, and then led to our starting the Health and Medicine course. I read that this course is due to be retired on 15 July 2020.

Please do NOT retire this course! Yes, it needs some revisions, but this is a tremendous resource beyond what Khan Academy may realize. Let me explain...

My first career was in secondary education teaching Spanish and remedial math. I eventually earned a PhD in Public Health Epidemiology and was a senior research scientist for decades. In addition to teaching as a volunteer to help some special needs children maintain and advance skills, I chair a local Health Committee for reopening community-based organizations. (Professionally, my name is Ellen Werner, PhD, MA.)

One of the biggest barriers to managing the global COVID-19 pandemic is health illiteracy. Khan Academy's Health and Medicine course can make a tremendous contribution to health literacy by correcting the few errors and re-launching it. This is an excellent course; the alternates listed are not as effective for broad population outreach and education.

If you want to add a Public Health and Epidemiology course, I volunteer to collaborate with a team to produce this much needed resource.

In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world needs more health education and literacy. Keep Health and Medicine, please!

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Official comment
carol

May 12, 2022 17:46

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As part of our Support Community improvement project, we’re preserving inactive posts that have historical or community value and closing them to new comments. This is one of them!

If this post covers a topic that you’re interested in discussing with the community or requests a feature you’d like to see on Khan Academy, you can try to find an active post about it and add your thoughts (or feel free or create a new post if it doesn’t yet exist in the forum).
BronsonFebruary

July 10, 2020 17:42
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I agree that Health and Medicine should be kept. I have learned tons of information about the body systems this past year. I looked endlessly for alternatives for this course. Not even one site comes close in the overviews, clean websites, and amazing information deliverance.
elikajavaheri

July 10, 2020 17:49

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Dear Khan Academy:

Please keep the MCAT and Health and Medicine courses. The lectures and quizzes are extremely helpful. The "alternative resources" are not helpful - the AAMC page doesn't provide any content review, it just gives an overview of the test. The free MCAT course helps students who are struggling financially have an even playing field when it comes to studying for the MCAT and getting into medical school. Other courses cost thousands of dollars - the Princeton Review's cheapest MCAT course is $2000, and Kaplan is just as expensive!

You don't need to maintain the course, we don't need edits, we don't need updates, we just need you to keep the page up.

Thank you.
T S

July 12, 2020 13:12
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I couldn't agree more! Thank you Khan Academy so much for your expertise and generosity. Please do not send Health & Medicine course to early retirement. This course is extremely helpful! Thank you so much again.
Tehilla Roth

July 12, 2020 17:17
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Please Keep The Health and Medicine courses up there so fascinating!! I'm 17 years old and am really enjoying learning about these topics now that there's no school. Its a shame I didn't come across them earlier!

Thank you so much!!
Syama Mehta

July 13, 2020 23:11
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I would also like to request that you please keep the Health and Medicine courses alive! I am in the desperately trying to go through the anatomy and physiology course. Could you keep them for at least another month? I would also love to purchase the material if possible. There is so much wonderful material there that many people will find very useful.

Thank you so much for your consideration!!
Adam H

July 17, 2020 05:53
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Seems a shame that OP has not received a reply.
tonyfoll11

July 22, 2020 13:29

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khanacademy wants to free some space of its database. this was a very bad way to do it. the tips and thanks menu should have been removed. its just the word 'thanks' repeated in multiple ways adding up to gigabytes of space in their database wasted. were all very thankfull and all but they're removing the reasons that make us thankful. please remove tips and thanks so you can add more videos and bring back health and medicine. i know that its not gone, you just removed the link (https://www.khanacademy.org/science/health-and-medicine still works). just remove tips and thanks. we'll all be thankful, promise.
Chelsea Smith

July 31, 2020 13:39

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It is indeed a shame that this course was removed, especially (as was mentioned above) during a pandemic where more people being educated about health and medicine is only beneficial. It's also unfortunate that no one from KA has replied to this thread.

Rather than doing away with the course entirely, it would've been great if they had offered one or more of the following: a crowd-funding initiative to earn the amount it would cost to keep the course available here; to offer the content for a small fee; or to make it available without future updates in an 'archived courses' location.

Considering the Public Health & Epidemiology content creation collaboration offer by OP would also be an excellent move. I don't have a hard science background, but I do work for a global biotech (my function is investigator contracting), and would offer any assistance I can provide. At a minimum, I'd be willing to help evaluate the cost of creating and maintaining the program OP has proposed (as well as revising/reinstating/maintaining the now-removed Health & Medicine program) and to seek funding from the industry (with, obviously, strict transparency measures in place).

I realize KA already relies on donations, and I'm not suggesting they use that pool of money to keep courses they would otherwise retire. But allowing those with interest in the content to directly contribute to the funding of its storage/maintenance would be a nice compromise.

Overall, I really enjoy KA and think it is an excellent resource. But allowing some specific interest-driven support on legacy material could be a great enhancement which I hope KA will consider.
Manasvi Duggal

August 17, 2020 12:31
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Khan Academy is the best site for learning. please keep the MCAT and Health and medicine course!
Chloe Woodward

October 12, 2020 02:32

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Khan Academy offers tremendous opportunities for education and growth in every field. Having the medical information now gone means taking a hard hit. I am studying social work and was working towards my education in the medical field to better myself in the profession. Please consider bringing the course back. Nothing compares to the clean cut, organized, and helpful set up of Khan Academy to study this type of information.

Thank you for all that your team does to provide the material on this website.

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