Moving into Programming?!!

Can a Dentist become a part of Silicon Valley Engineers?

I studied Dentistry for 5 years and practiced for the next 4 years. While researching for the Master’s program, I realized healthcare in this age is more than a doctor-patient relationship. In the internet era, it is about data analysis, automation, and the internet of things (IoT).

While pursuing my Master’s in Health Administration and staying in the San Francisco Bay Area, I was mostly surrounded by people from the software industry. It was getting very difficult for me to connect with individuals in the core healthcare industry. Most of the healthcare companies were working on services and products that could improve the healthcare system using the software as the core platform. This was the proof of the knowledge that I had come across while preparing for my Master’s application.

After connecting with people who are working in the “healthcare” companies, I was advised that due to COVID, the healthcare industry has started revolutionizing into SaaS (Software as a Service).

Thus, I took the course of Health Informatics in my Master’s program. I also spoke to a couple of my seniors who were working as Healthcare Data Analyst and on their suggestion, I decided to take the Google Data Analytics Professional Certification. I also started learning Python including the basics and libraries like NumPy, pandas, Matplotlib, and Scikit-Learn while preparing for a role in Data Science.

To improve my skills in Python, I started solving the HackerRank problems and continued my Python course on Udemy. Initially, coming from a non-programming background or to say precisely from a medical background, it was daunting and overwhelming to venture into the world of programming. Now with dedicating enough time to programming, it is more fun, and I continued to learn advanced Python programming.

Now, I have the skill set including SQL, R programming, Python, Tableau, algorithms, and version control required for a Data Scientist role or a Python Backend Developer.

My next goal is to learn database management concepts and the basics of HTML and CSS.