POTHOLES IN THE ROAD TO PROFESSIONALISM IN MEDICAL INFORMATICS

Heathfield and Wyatt's article in the current issue of Methods opens a debate about the status of Medical Informatics as a discipline and as a profession. While the desire for more professionalism of Medical In formatics is laudable, certain points in the article are debatable. Ba sed on widely circulated definitions of profession and science, on the thousands of people who make medical informatics their main occupatio n, and on at least 10,000 peer-reviewed publications, the authors argu e that the discipline is already a profession, albeit a fledgling one. Contrary to the positions of Heathfield and Wyatt, exemplary, long-la sting medical informatics applications demonstrate that the best artif acts of medical informatics already meet the most important requiremen t for professionalism, i.e., the commitment to clients and the public to perform a socially useful function.