Learning to question differently: My MSc in Applied Digital Health journey
8 hours and 47 minutes ago
Rahmah Badran joined the MSc in Applied Digital Health ready to challenge both technology and institutional medicine. Through interdisciplinary teaching, debate and research, she discovered a more nuanced way of engaging with AI, healthcare and the role of digital innovation in society.
About the author:
Rahmah Badran is a current student on the MSc in Applied Digital Health programme. She grew up between Puerto Rico and Palestine before completing her undergraduate degree in Medical Humanities from Columbia University in the City of New York.
Being completely transparent, I came into the MSc in Applied Digital Health programme distrusting both technology and institutional medicine, and I made my opinions very well-known from the very first day. So naturally, one of the leads of our first module asked me, ‘What are you doing here?’
It was a good question. The truth was, I came into the programme ready to be the devil’s advocate, telling myself I had to make discomfort my home turf. It started off easily enough with a module on the theoretical ‘Foundations of Digital Health’ led by Associate Professor Chrysanthi Papoutsi, Professor Catherine Pope and Dr Nicola Newhouse. While my coursemates were engaging deeply with the sociotechnical and working through ‘alternative ontologies'; to those they had learned in medical school or computer science, I felt comfortable poking and prodding the guests on our entrepreneurship panel.
I was pleasantly surprised, however, that my classmates welcomed the sociotechnical, and that this openness has carried throughout the programme. My peers began asking for my perspective on debates raised in class, and I quickly realised I needed to extend that same curiosity to their fields. Hearing from classmates and guest speakers across disciplines, I had to confront the reality that AI integration was not only widely desired by clinicians, but in most cases, seen as inevitable.
Although I had initially approached the programme expecting to challenge the assumptions behind digital health, I quickly realised that many of my classmates were already navigating these debates with a level of nuance, clarity and experience I hadn’t yet developed. I reminded myself I was here to learn, not be stuck in my own ways, and most importantly, I could not react paternalistically to their lived experiences. After all, that had been my central critique of institutional medicine. The most responsible step I could take, then, was to engage more deeply. I joined an AI safety fellowship, which introduced me to the biggest debates in AI safety and strategies to mitigate harms, if I believed them to be there.
Now that the eight modules are complete, I can say that the ‘Harnessing Big Data for Clinical Decision Support’, ‘AI for Efficient Healthcare Systems’ and ‘Economics of Digital Health’ modules became my favourites. Being a fish out of water allowed me to approach the material critically, which ultimately made the experience more enriching. These modules also gave me the confidence to attend talks aligned with my interests – from discussions on human relationships with AI to the ways experimental psychology and AI inform one another. I found myself moving between big-picture questions and technical detail, sometimes discreetly opening Canvas on my phone to revisit a specific model architecture and connect it back to the ideas being discussed.
Life beyond the classroom
Since starting the MSc, I’ve felt myself become a more balanced human. My days might involve learning about the economics of digital health, debating AI capabilities in the afternoon, attending Animal Ethics Society meetings in the evening and squeezing in community gardening or coxing for my college rowing team.
Rahmah and the St Catherine’s College rowing team in Lake Bled, Slovenia
Life outside the classroom often reinforced what I was learning in it. Through community gardening projects, I found myself speaking with local residents about the NHS and digital health technologies. More often than not, these conversations highlighted frustrations with access, usability or systems that did not quite work as intended. On one occasion, someone shared concerns about a technology - only for a member of that same organisation to speak to our cohort the following week. Experiences like that made the concepts of user-centred design and co-design feel much more tangible.
The same was true in my role as Student Representative for the course. Sitting on Departmental and Medical Sciences Division committees gave me a chance to see how student voices can shape resources and decision-making. In a programme where co-design is discussed so frequently, it was rewarding to see those principles applied to students themselves.
After eight modules, I now find myself back in my own bubble, working on a self-proposed dissertation on health-seeking behaviour in online communities. The idea itself dates back to my first term and remains rooted in my initial scepticism of institutional medicine. However, it has since evolved into a more focused attempt to understand how these spaces might inform and support clinical care. Being based in a primary care research environment, while also having access to such a wide range of disciplines across the University, has made that kind of exploration possible. It has felt, at times, like an unusual amount of freedom – to learn from researchers, clinicians and patients, and to follow questions wherever they lead.
Rahmah at matriculation
In a world where people often debate whether we need more generalists or specialists, this programme has helped me resist that false dichotomy. It has shown me how I can hold multiple perspectives at once, honour competing ideas and still develop depth. If anything, it has convinced me that becoming a ‘specialist in many things’ is not a contradiction, or an impossible goal. It is an entirely possible way of engaging more thoughtfully with the world.
When I was asked on my first day what I was doing in a programme like this, I thought the answer was that I was there to question digital health. Looking back, I think a better answer is that I was there to learn how to question it differently – and hopefully, how to question it well. I leave the programme with many of the same instincts that brought me here, but with a greater appreciation for the people building, studying and using these technologies, and for the value of engaging with perspectives very different from my own.
What to read next
A Psychotherapist’s reflections on the MSc in Applied Digital Health
23 June 2026
Psychotherapist Isabella Parker reflects on studying the MSc in Applied Digital Health at Oxford, exploring how technology, research and interdisciplinary collaboration can help address challenges in mental healthcare access.
What digital health innovation needs to reduce inequity: Lessons from the MSc in Applied Digital Health
7 July 2026
Can artificial intelligence help reduce health inequities? Drawing on experiences from the MSc in Applied Digital Health, Sergej Kucenko reflects on responsible innovation, sociotechnical thinking in healthcare and why technology alone cannot solve unequal health outcomes.