As one of the nation’s first completely digital, interactive learning environments, the iMedEd Initiative was created in 2010 to foster highly individualized and small-group learning that gives our students a richer medical school experience. Each year since 2010, all students begin medical school with an iPad. While iMedEd began as a 1:1 iPad program that has equipped over a thousand medical students, staff, and faculty with an iPad since its inception, its more profound impact has been that iMedEd has evolved from focusing just on the devices and the content, to broadly influencing the philosophy and culture of who we are as a medical school and what we value as educators.
See reflections from our 10-year anniversary of the iMedEd Initiative.
Med AppJam
Since 2012, the School of Medicine has partnered with the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS) to host an inter-professional student-to-student competition to develop mobile health apps called the Med AppJam. Hundreds of students have since participated in these events.
In the first years, the competition naturally focused on iOS mobile health apps. Soon, faculty took interest so we added the Med iBookJam in 2015 to offer them a chance to partner with medical students and easily develop interactive digital content.
In 2017, we took advantage of the launch of Apple’s ARKit and held what we called the Med ARJam. We worked with Apple to coordinate a workshop on ARKit fundamentals for students prior to the competition.
In 2019, we partnered with our Center for Artificial Intelligence in Diagnostic Medicine to hold our first Med AIJam focused on artificial intelligence in healthcare.
For more information on the Med AppJam:
Photo Credit: Peter Huynh 
Med iBookJam
The Med iBookJam was a competition for teams of medical students and School of Medicine faculty who come together to create iBooks that provide easy-to-access learning materials on key medical subjects.
iBooks are multi-touch digital books that are created using iBooks Author, Apple’s tool to create and publish eBooks for iPhones, iPads and Macs. iBooks Author is an easy-to-use tool that enables anyone with a Mac to quickly produce interactive digital content in a manner similar to creating a Powerpoint presentation.
The first collection of UCI Health School of Medicine iBooks originating from Med iBookJam teams was honored to have been featured in the Apple Books store.