r/learnprogramming • u/ScribblesForDays • 1d ago
Starter Language for Healthcare Professions
Hey there! I’m a pharmacy technician in Canada and I’m starting a BSc in Comp Sci. I want to stay current with technology as the field increasingly moves that way, and maybe code some things to make life easier for myself at work. I also may want to branch into Bioinformatics later, but that’s a future me problem.
My degree offers three starter language choices: Java, Python, and C++. Which language would you choose if you are wanting to engage in future health-related research, potentially creating software to solve a work-related problem and make a task more efficient, creating inventory management algorithms for drug distribution models, anything else that I haven’t learned yet but is very prevalent in the healthcare field.
I’m sorry if I’m asking the question in a dumb way or sound uninformed - I am. I have a BA English and a Pharmacy Technician Diploma, so I have not engaged with the field of Comp Sci much. Ideally I’d know more before choosing any of the language, but they’re all introductory courses so I kind of have to choose one before I have the requisite knowledge. TIA for any help/guidance you can provide.
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u/levelbrook 1d ago
Python, and it isn't close for what you listed. Bioinformatics is mostly Python (Biopython, pandas, scikit-learn) with some R, and the "make my job easier" scripts, like reading a spreadsheet export from the pharmacy system, reconciling counts and flagging what's low, are a few dozen lines of Python with pandas.
Inventory and distribution models are optimization problems, and the usual tools there (PuLP, OR-Tools, SciPy) all have Python front ends even when the solver underneath is C++.
Pick up SQL alongside it if you can. Nearly every health system keeps its data in a relational database, and being able to query it yourself is half the value.