Data Science in Health, a podcast by Jocelyn Dunstan Escudero

ByPaula Silva

September, 2023.- How can the world of health be brought closer to people who are being trained in engineering? This was the challenge that gave rise to the podcast Ciencia de Datos en Salud, by IMC and DCC UC academic Jocelyn Duntsan Escudero, which premiered on the Millennium Institute for Foundational Research on Data (IMFD) Spotify channel in early September.

Daniela Guzmán, emergency physician at the Hospital de Urgencia Asistencia Pública (formerly Posta Central), with Jocelyn Duntsan Escudero

“I had a great concern about how to get my students to learn about the different specialties that exist in the health field, because I feel that this knowledge, this closeness, is what allows truly interdisciplinary work to be generated,” explains the researcher. In its first few weeks, the podcast managed to rank among the 100 most listened to in Chile on Spotify, a platform on which it is available free of charge to all audiences.

The Instituto Traumatológico’s Instagram post highlighted the interview with Lorena Salvo, Head of the Clinical Analysis and Records Unit (CRD) of that service.

 

In this space, the Millennium Institute for Foundational Research on Data researcher talks with specialists from different areas of health: anesthesiology, medical informatics, nutrition, emergency medicine, and dermatology are some of the first specialties covered. “I hope to be able to gradually cover the different areas, and also go beyond medical specialties to add conversations with other health professionals, from medical technology, nursing, or kinesiology. I also already have a couple of interviews scheduled outside of Santiago,” she explains.

For IMFD, carrying out this type of initiative supports the dissemination of the important interdisciplinary work carried out by the institute’s researchers. “We know that for many people, data science sounds like something distant and unfamiliar. This type of initiative helps people understand that working with data is highly relevant to our society, and that it is present in the most diverse areas, as in this case, getting to know the field of health and medicine from a data perspective,” explains Camila Díaz, executive director of IMFD.

The podcast already has 11 episodes available on Spotify, and will be complemented with new episodes in the coming weeks.