For Andres Jimenez, the decision to pursue his PhD online became far more than a practical lifestyle choice. Sure, the flexibility of Capella learning was nearly essential for a busy physician like him. But beyond that, he saw the experience as a model for his own ambition: to make medical training more accessible.
With his lifelong interest in education, Jimenez sensed that online training could fill an important need. He saw it as an effective way for overbooked physicians to keep their skills up to date. Noticing that many medical educators lacked training as teachers, Jimenez also recognized an opportunity for himself: the chance to become one of very few surgeons in the country who have PhD-level expertise in education.
Not long after beginning his Capella course work in Instructional Design for Online Learning, Jimenez found he could prove the value of his ideas by redeveloping physician training at a medical company in Chicago. “Ratings jumped through the roof,” he says, when he transformed a straight lecture course into a more interactive program. “I learned how to teach that way through my own studies at Capella.”
After that success, Jimenez decided to revisit a challenge that fueled his ambition in the first place. Years ago at his New York high school, guidance counselors discouraged his interest in medicine, saying the field was too competitive. “That stuck with me,” Jimenez says. Now, back in New York as founder and president of StudentsofMedicine.com, he offers free, online pre-med courses to 200 disadvantaged young people in the Bronx and Manhattan.
For the impetus to keep going, Jimenez thanks his family. “I was blessed,” he says. “I want to provide resources to kids who don’t have that encouragement.” For the knowhow to realize his goals, he credits Capella for enabling him to “figure out a more effective way to guide tomorrow’s doctors.” Through online training, his nonprofit organization aims ultimately to reach 10,000 young people in the U.S. and around the world.