Summit Session: Dr. Zuhairi Zainuddin on Doctors Who Code: The Digital Age of Medicine

This year alone (2022), there are 6.648 billion smartphones in the world. This indicates that 83.37% of the world’s population have smartphones. “This is the market from which?YouTubers, Instagrammers, Podcasters, and Influencers earn their income. This is the market that app developers tap into,” noted Dr. Zuhairi Zainuddin

?Dr. Mohd Zuhairi?bin Zainuddin is a?Psychiatric Medical Officer and a trainee psychiatrist at the UiTM hospital with a deep interest in digital health. He has been building apps that have greatly helped doctors, medical staff, and patients. At the Diverse Careers for Doctors Summit, Dr. Zuhairi spoke on the hot topic of coding for doctors. Digitalization has overtaken various sectors especially with the COVID 19 pandemic, and the healthcare sector was among the first to embrace the technology. Digital health is here to stay and doctors who code will be in?high demand in the market.

?Dr. Zuhairi’s Coding Journey

In 2014, while awaiting his HO placement, Dr Zuhairi decided to learn to code purely out of curiosity. He went online, looked through some free resources, and learned some languages such as javascript, Python and some java. In 2018 while serving as a Psychiatric Medical Officer at Tawau Hospital he picked up different coding languages such as Kotin and C++. Kotlin is a coding language used in native android development which Dr. Zuhairi utilized to build his first android app.

?In 2019, he explored Dart and discovered Flutter and ever since then, Flutter has become?Dr.?Zuhairi’s primary coding language. Such was his fascination with Flutter that he learned other frameworks and technologies related to it?such as the server, the backend etc. and proceeded to build his first flutter-inspired app.

?Basically, there are two ways to build an app i) through native?or ii)through hybrid development. Native development implies that one builds an app specific to a platform, for example,?an android app for Google or an IOS app for Apple. But if a developer builds a hybrid app, it can be deployed on both Google and Apple platforms and Flutter was perfect for this reason.

?Dr. Zuhairi’s motivation to get into app development was two-fold ?i)He loved automating processes and making them digital. The thought of compiling, stacking and stapling papers was always unappealing to him. ii)?He's also undergoing training to obtain his membership into the Royal College of Psychiatrists (UK). Such training can be an expensive venture and Dr. Zuhairi welcomes the additional income app development has provided to him to offset his education cost.

So, What’s Coding?

?Coding is simply the act of giving instructions to a machine which is specific and straightforward that a machine can understand. Whatever is keyed-in is being compiled into binaries which the machine proceeds to interpret. So coding is really a language that someone learns. For example, if we compare the codes in Python and C++, we will observe the similarities between these languages in terms of their structure, the words they use etc.

?This means knowing one coding language will make it?easier for a person to understand other coding languages because the structures are related. If a coding language is closely followed, re-coding becomes quite a sensible process. “Coding is not that difficult, is quite fun, and doesn’t require supernatural intelligence,” noted Dr. Zuhairi.

?Some Apps that Dr. Zuhairi?Has Developed Over the Years

• ?As a psychiatric MO at Tawau Hospital in 2019, Dr. Zuhairi developed the MyCPU app to facilitate visits to patients’ homes to observe them in their home environment. As is understandable, in?rural areas, some patients do not have proper addresses, or homes are difficult to locate even with an address. There?are also many who do not have phones and communication is often hindered.

?The MyCPU app solved all these problems via an integrated google map service and an integrated WhatsApp system. Vital signs could also be recorded in the app. This app won the best overall category at the Sabah State Innovation Contest with Dr. Zuhairi being awarded The Best Practice Award by the Malaysia Psychiatric Association in 2020!

• In 2020,?using Flutter, Dr. Zuhairi built the MyPinkBook app to replace the pink books in hospitals so patients could monitor their pregnancy and are not in danger of losing vital information as often happens with these physical books. It is also an app to support the environment as less paper will be used for books. This app is still in the experimental stage.
• ?While at the Mekar Unit of the Selayang Hospital in 2021 for his child psychiatry posting, Dr. Zuhairi observed that follow-up with young patients was problematic. In the manual process, some patients failed to make appointments, others did not show up at the appointed times etc. So, Dr. Zuhairi created the Mekar app where staff could view patients’ last visit and other pertinent data such as the weight of anorexic children/adolescents.
• In 2022, an app called Flexmind (2022)?was built by a group of psychiatrists which included Dr. Zuhairi, calling themselves “Skuad Peduli minda” at UiTM. The app was funded by the university and is scheduled to be launched early next year. It is currently in its testing phase. The app has a mood diary, suicide prevention, gratitude journal sections, and relaxation videos.
• ?His most recent app is Psych Census (2022) built for the psychiatry department at UiTM. This app compiles the relevant information required of psychiatrists by the administrative staff. The app saves time and money because all relevant data such as patients seen in the Emergency Department, patients seen in clinics, and other data are tracked by the app.

?Doctors Can Be Good Programmers!

?Overall, it has been a fruitful journey for Dr. Zuhairi. Not only has he been involved in developing apps that have been making a difference in the patient communities, he’s also become a course instructor for coding. He has seen his career grow from building apps to teaching and training on coding to the government and private sectors.

?According to Dr. Zuhairi, doctors make good programmers for the following reasons:

1. Doctors are excellent self-learners
2. Doctors are trained to think logically which is a must-have skill for programmers.
3. Doctors are creative
4. Doctors have heightened problem-solving abilities
5. Doctors are able to simplify solutions.
6. Doctors are highly productive and focused and,
7. Doctors are hardworking.

?“These features are what makes doctors excellent programmers. Coupled with patience and a keen interest in coding,?doctors could be among the?best programmers in the field”, noted Dr. Zuhairi.

If you are a doctor and want to learn coding, join our Doctors Who Code Workshop where the award-winning Dr. Zuhairi himself will train you from the 26th - 27th November & the 3rd - 4th Dec 2022. More details here: https://medicfootprints.com.my/doctors-who-code-workshop/ Sign up fast as slots are limited!??