Learner Profile
Alice Duart

School

University of Brasilia, Brazil

HMX Courses

Pharmacology, Physiology, Immunology, Biochemistry, Genetics

It didn’t take Alice Duart long to realize she needed help in adapting to medical school. She began learning with HMX prior to her second semester at the University of Brasilia, and has continued taking courses as she progresses in her medical education.

I graduated from high school in December of 2016 and got accepted at University of Brasília in April of 2017, initiated medical school in August. So I was really fresh from high school and it was really difficult to adapt my brain to how university classes work. Medical school was so much different than everything else I knew before; I was completely lost at first and I had no idea how to absorb all the content I was being exposed to at such a high rate. It was a huge challenge of fast classes, teachers who just “throw” everything you’re supposed to know at your face so rapidly and so many hours of those insane passive lessons – where you just sit and try to write everything down as fast as you can – with almost no time to review or to prepare for the future classes.

So I decided to get better prepared for my second semester, so I wouldn’t be so lost and clueless during my classes. I’ve searched for online courses from prestigious and trustable institutions for me to try out. Thanks to the HMX preview course, I had the opportunity to see what HMX lessons were about and they were exactly what I needed. I could take the courses in most of my free time (my vacation period) to review subjects I’ve poorly learnt in my first semester (such as genetics and biochemistry) and learn new subjects (like immunology and physiology) that I would see later in med school.

Everything was useful, honestly. Even the fact that the course was in English with audio and subtitles was useful, because it taught me so much in such a unique way! Where else could I learn medical school content and also improve my foreign language skills? But I think what I enjoyed the most were the lesson notepads and the clinical linkages.

The lesson notepads are all the material you can keep from the course after it ends, so you can reach them later to review. During the lessons, the notepads helped me to improve my learning and studying skills, because it organized the content in categories. First, know the key concepts of what you’re learning, then take notes about the videos, then answer some questions about it, and at last, see if you got all the learning objectives. This method of studying is something I’ll take for the rest of my medical career, for sure.

The clinical linkages were my favorite part of the lessons. The opportunity to virtually go to a clinic or a hospital or an operating room was more than I could ask for, because it gave me the opportunity to settle my knowledge better, apply what I’ve learned to real-life scenarios and also to absorb even better all the content due to the clinical example with real patients. Those clinical linkages made my learning experiences truly memorable.

I’d recommend the courses for other medical students. In fact, I already did. Because HMX courses are different from those we have in med school, they’re slower and really worried about if you really deeply understand the fundamental basis of the subjects before you have contact with more complex medical situations. They give you the opportunity to get better prepared before your next semesters and also to review what you’ve already learnt. HMX gives you confidence in your knowledge because your key concepts are clear and solidified after you learn from it.

I’ve applied [knowledge from] my physiology and immunology courses in my classes and exams for medical school. It was easier to understand the lessons at the university and I felt more confident about myself. Pharmacology I’ll apply this semester, because I’m getting pharmacology lessons at med school and I’ll be ahead due to the background knowledge the course gave me.

For the future, I hope these courses might help in opening opportunities outside of Brazil, not only due to the Harvard name on them but also due to the English medical terms I’ve learnt and due to the new study methods I got to practice. I’ve always seen myself as a global citizen and I want to be free and able to go wherever I want in the world to learn and teach with all kinds of people, professionals, patients, and cultures. I believe HMX might help me a little bit with that. Another goal of mine is to go abroad for a clerkship, observership or internship, like a medical elective; that’s one of my next steps towards my future medical career.