Low awareness of clinical informatics training among med students
Despite strong interest among medical students in pursuing clinical informatics, few are aware of the availability of training opportunities for the field, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.
The American Medical Association funded the study which provided a a web-based survey to medical students at Brown University's Alpert Medical School; Oregon Health & Science University's School of Medicine; the University of Alabama at Birmingham's Medical School; and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
Of the 557 medical students who responded, a majority said they were interested in taking electives in clinical informatics as residents or student but less than one-third knew of available clinical informatics training options.
Thirty percent of respondents said they were at least somewhat interested in using clinical informatics in their future jobs with 13 percent of those saying they were "very interested."
Editor Beth earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and master’s in health communication. She has worked in hospital, academic and publishing settings over the past 20 years. Beth joined TriMed in 2005, as editor of CMIO and Clinical Innovation + Technology. When not covering all things related to health IT, she spends time with her husband and three children.