Medical Informatics Education at Medical Faculty of Sarajevo University - 15 Years Experience

CONFLICT OF INTEREST: NONE DECLARED In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Medical informatics has been a separate subject for the last 15 years with regard to Medical curriculum at the biomedical faculties in the country (1,2). Education in the field of Medical informatics is based on the concept which is used in developed countries, according to the recommendations of the working groups EDU – Education of Medical Informatics, of the European Federation for Medical Informatics (EFMI) and International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA). Theoretical and practical teaching and training performance as a whole is performed by use of the computer equipment, and the final knowledge check of the students is also performed using the Data Base Management System MS Access specifically designed to cover full teaching and training material by using question sets in the data base which encircled nearly 1500 question combinations. The distance learning is logical step that can further improve this method of education. In this paper, authors present 15 years of experience of Medical informatics education at biomedical faculties in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Medical Informatics, as an obligatory subject, was introduced to the biomedical faculties in Sarajevo (medical, dental and pharmaceutical as well as the High medical school) in 1992 and 1993. Students have practical computer exercises for a period of 7 weeks. Students had training in Excel, Word etc. During the semester, the students perform specific operation such as creation of data carrier for manipulation with medical information. The information was analyzed by statistical program such as Excel. From 2002 years Medical Informatics is divided in two parts in order to facilitate data processing and other procedure that are necessary to perform at time when student’s knowledge of medicine is sufficient for practicing specific tasks that include management the data about patient, anamnesis and similar parameters cause we noticed that students without such knowledge cannot figure out the whole picture without difficulties. The Theoretical part of examination is done using the multiple choice answer form provided by special software with randomly selected questions for each student. Such way of practical and theoretical path of final exam make possible to perform such procedures such as electronic registration for exam and distance testing. Possibilities of introduction of distance learning in medical curriculum are the title of project which has been realizing at Cathedra for medical Informatics, Medical faculty since year 2002. Our undergraduate and postgraduate students are satisfied with contents and organization of the teaching process.