College Level Medical Courses

[defscarlett]

I'm looking to expand my knowledge in the medical field, as part of my dissertation, it overlaps a bit into medical research. I'm reading through research papers from clinicians and I'm not quite understanding it due to my lack of knowledge in medicine. Are there any college level courses available for free or cheap? For the record they don't actually have to be worth college credit, just college level.

It's a criminal justice dissertation, revolving around forensic science, just trying to understand the human body better to understand what these research papers are actually saying.

I've already taken Human Biology and Biology I on sophia.

[wow]

It's been a while since I took any so I don't have specific recommendations (offerings may have changed), but I've taken many good medical-related courses on both EdX and Coursera. I'd look at those first.

Khan Academy AP Bio and AP Chem would probably be helpful too for making sure you understand the basics.

You could also look into the ASU Universal Learner Courses-- pay the $25 registration fee but not take them for a grade. All the science courses I've taken through them are excellent.

I highly recommend NinjaNerd on YouTube for understanding things in more detail from a medical and anatomical perspective, but you need a good basis in bio and chem to really follow a lot of the lectures.

[defscarlett]

It's been a while since I took any so I don't have specific recommendations (offerings may have changed), but I've taken many good medical-related courses on both EdX and Coursera. I'd look at those first.

Khan Academy AP Bio and AP Chem would probably be helpful too for making sure you understand the basics.

You could also look into the ASU Universal Learner Courses-- pay the $25 registration fee but not take them for a grade. All the science courses I've taken through them are excellent.

I highly recommend NinjaNerd on YouTube for understanding things in more detail from a medical and anatomical perspective, but you need a good basis in bio and chem to really follow a lot of the lectures.

Any specific course names or types that you can recommend?  The knowledge I'm looking for is surrounding drug and alcohol and how the substances work through the body and the forensic testing (Blood, breath and Urine). Dissertation is surrounding DUI's, mostly sociological impact, but the science behind impairment is also needed, much less surrounding the forensic methods.

[Avidreader]

Lawshelf has a few health related courses, but I don't recall much offerings on forensics. Coursera back in 2015 had a few interesting courses with some overlap, not sure if there's still anything. Most of the knowledge in this field will be found in medical textbooks. I do believe there's some interesting online courses with more overlap, but I've only seen offerings in Spanish.

[wow]

It's been a while since I took any so I don't have specific recommendations (offerings may have changed), but I've taken many good medical-related courses on both EdX and Coursera. I'd look at those first.

Khan Academy AP Bio and AP Chem would probably be helpful too for making sure you understand the basics.

You could also look into the ASU Universal Learner Courses-- pay the $25 registration fee but not take them for a grade. All the science courses I've taken through them are excellent.

I highly recommend NinjaNerd on YouTube for understanding things in more detail from a medical and anatomical perspective, but you need a good basis in bio and chem to really follow a lot of the lectures.

Any specific course names or types that you can recommend?  The knowledge I'm looking for is surrounding drug and alcohol and how the substances work through the body and the forensic testing (Blood, breath and Urine). Dissertation is surrounding DUI's, mostly sociological impact, but the science behind impairment is also needed, much less surrounding the forensic methods.

The Khan Academy ones. From your initial post I thought you were looking for general medical knowledge and understanding of anatomical and possibly pharmacological terms.  I would just go to EdX, Coursera, and NinjaNerd and see what they have related to medical forensics, substance abuse, and medical terminology.

[Stonybeach]

"Ten simple rules for reading a scientific paper"
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7392212/

Medical journals use much data gathered from clinical trials or meta-analyses to emphasize clinical significance (strong evidence). I don't want to oversimplify the value of statistical analysis, and this is not the place for instruction, so keep in mind that p values of less than .05 are 'clinically significant' with a large sample size (>25).
Read the abstract first for an overall summary/conclusion(s).

"Understanding Evidence Levels in Evidence-Based Medicine: A Guide for Healthcare Professionals"
https://www.researchgate.net/publication...fessionals

[sanantone]

I'm a forensic science instructor with a forensic medicine degree. Anatomy & Physiology I and II, toxicology, statistics (you've probably already taken this), forensic biology, and medicolegal or medical death investigations will probably be helpful to you. You can audit courses at Coursera, edX, and OpenLearn. Khan Academy is another good one as someone mentioned above. The most detailed course I took on how the body processes alcohol and other drugs was a substance abuse counseling course. I think a subscription to The Great Courses is worth it. They have college-level lectures on several different sub-fields of biology and chemistry, a Medical School for Everyone course, and some new forensic science courses.

[wow]

Sanantone jogged my memory. Great Courses also has a good course on substance abuse and the brain. On edx I also took an excellent course on human anatomy from Harvard. Khan academy has some great anatomy resources as well, but the anatomy course does not show up in the main course menu. You have to do a search.

You can do Sophia anatomy one and two, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you learn very well just through reading a textbook (NinjaNerd is actually something I discovered when I was doing A&P on Sophia and hating it. I cannot speak highly enough about that resource.) If that's the case, then just using the OpenStax A & P should work just as well. The benefit of sophia, I found, with the opportunity to take virtual labs. When I have a Sophia membership, I usually take a lab or two in subjects I've already taken, just to learn and review the information in a different way.

[bluebooger]

you don't need a course

just get some inexpensive books and read them or scan them when you need specific knowledge

get this

https://www.amazon.com/Structure-Functio...0323597793

or this

https://www.amazon.com/Human-Body-Health...0323734146

or both of these

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1935660640

https://www.amazon.com/Clinical-Pathophy...1935660446

do not get a kindle version of any of them
you want good color images and good layout

used versions of the books are fine

[sanantone]

Sanantone jogged my memory. Great Courses also has a good course on substance abuse and the brain. On edx I also took an excellent course on human anatomy from Harvard. Khan academy has some great anatomy resources as well, but the anatomy course does not show up in the main course menu. You have to do a search.

You can do Sophia anatomy one and two, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you learn very well just through reading a textbook (NinjaNerd is actually something I discovered when I was doing A&P on Sophia and hating it. I cannot speak highly enough about that resource.) If that's the case, then just using the OpenStax A & P should work just as well. The benefit of sophia, I found, with the opportunity to take virtual labs. When I have a Sophia membership, I usually take a lab or two in subjects I've already taken, just to learn and review the information in a different way.

I love The Great Courses. Their video courses are only about 12 hours, on average, which is faster than reading a textbook. They get the best instructors from around the country who are really good at explaining complex subjects. 

If someone wants a book on death investigations, the bible for the field is Medicolegal Investigation of Death: Guidelines for the Application of Pathology to Crime Investigation by Spitz and Fisher. Every medicolegal death investigator or detective should have this for referencing. Really, anyone who whose work involves forensic pathology should own this book, including forensic nurses and child/adult protective services caseworker.