From Doctor to Futurist: Step #5 Being a Medical Futurist

After fulfilling my childhood dream of becoming a doctor and a geneticist, I decided to make a brave change in my academic career and started discovering the steps needed to become a medical futurist. There is no clear path or course for that, therefore I try to reveal more and more information about this exciting journey in this series of blog entries. This step might be surprising but it’s really important to position yourself. Everyone is a futurist now therefore one must be very cautious when using this expression. Scott Smith, changeist, divides them into the following groups: There are different flavors of futurists. There is the professional, consulting kind, many of whom trained in a formal university or professional program, and use structured methods and tools to help large organizations make sense of trends and develop strategies. There are the self-proclaimed futurists who are enthusiasts of a specific area such as technology, food, health, culture and so on, who dedicate themselves to furthering a favored future (here I would place Kurzweil and kin). Then, there are the broader masses of folk who like the idea of the future, and speak about leading others there, or just surround themselves in the trappings of all that is shiny and future-esque. While there are university programs and courses in futuristic studies, I don’t think I should deal with the major changes in economy or society (see the video below), but focus only on bringing disruptive med...
Source: ScienceRoll - Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Authors: Tags: From Doctor to Futurist Future Medicine 2.0 Video Web 2.0 Source Type: blogs