The latest research on food, vitamins and supplements drew a standing room only crowd to the New Research Building on March 5 for the kickoff of the 13th annual Longwood Mini Med School Seminars sponsored by Harvard Medical School (HMS).
The Longwood Mini Med School Seminars are an important part of the School’s effort to engage the Greater Boston community and promote understanding of medicine and biomedical research.
“We were thrilled to launch the 2013 mini-med school with more than 500 people in attendance and thousands more viewing the program through live streaming and an online video. It is both gratifying and a privilege to engage the community in the work of Harvard Medical School and to offer the public the most current information on science and health,” said Gina Vild, associate dean of communications and external relations and chief communications officer of Harvard Medical School.
The Longwood Seminars are made up of a series of four, free “mini-med school” classes for the general public that are presented on the HMS campus each spring. At the end of the seminar series, participants who’ve attended at least three sessions are eligible to receive a certificate of completion.
Seminar topics are chosen based on their appeal to lay audiences. In addition to the nutrition program, topics this year will also cover sleep medicine, neuroengineering and health care belief systems. In recent years, Mini Med School participants have helped to select the final four topics by voting on Facebook. Faculty from HMS and its affiliate hospitals volunteer their time to present these lectures to the community.
Faculty speakers for the March 5 nutrition seminar, “Food and Vitamins and Supplements! Oh My! Demystifying Nutrition,” included Eric Rimm, HMS associate professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, who presented about weight loss, and Howard Sesso, HMS associate professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital who spoke about vitamins and supplements.
Moderator Walter Willett, chairman of the Department of Nutrition at HSPH, the Frederick Stare Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition at HSPH, and HMS professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital Channing Laboratory, provided additional information on the subject and led the question and answer portion of the event.
The seminar had one of the largest turnouts in the program’s history, with more than 500 people in attendance. Attendees of the seminars come from all walks of life and range in age from high school students to senior citizens.
Since 2001, attendees of the HMS Mini Med School program have learned about a broad range of topics, including: the human genome, autism and health care access.
For the first time in Longwood Seminar history, those who were not able to make it to the event were able to watch it live via webcast. More than 125 people from six countries watched the live-stream of the nutrition seminar online. To view Tuesday’s nutrition seminar, please click the image above. To view live-streams of future Mini Med School classes, please visit: www.cchmav.org/longwood/live.html.
Also new this year was the addition of a mobile Mini Med School app for iPhone and Android phones. The app features the 2013 schedule, the location of the seminars and a link to download the supplemental reading materials. To download the app, please visit: http://my.yapp.us/QDJUNE.
Remaining Longwood Seminars include:
March 19: “The Power of Zzzzs—Uncovering why sleep is essential to our well-being and how to get more of it.”
April 2: “It’s All in Your Head—Building better brains through neuroengineering.”
April 23: “Beyond Belief—Exploring the connection between personal beliefs and physical health.”
At this time, registration for the remaining seminars this year has closed and each session is full, but there is still available space on the waiting list. Please e-mail longwood_seminars@hms.harvard.edu to be added.
To learn more about the seminars, please visit: hms.harvard.edu/news/longwood-seminars.
