MEDICAL INFORMATICS HEIDELBERG HEILBRONN - GRADUATES EXPERIENCES AND JOB SITUATION - AN INQUIRY AMONG GRADUATES HAVING COMPLETED THE CURRICULUM OF MEDICAL INFORMATICS AT THE UNIVERSITY-OF-HEIDELBERG SCHOOL-OF-TECHNOLOGY-HEILBRONN

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the curriculum of medical i nformatics at the University of Heidelberg/School of Technology Heilbr onn, a written and anonymous inquiry was carried out in March 1992 amo ng the entirety of graduates from the curriculum. The aim of the inqui ry was to obtain from the graduates of the curriculum information abou t their current places of employment, their fields of work, the state of continuing education as well as about their professional position. It was, in addition, intended to obtain from the graduates' point of v iew an assessment of the education received during their studies as we ll as an assessment of the job situation. A questionnaire was sent to all persons having completed their studies by that time (n = 567, as o f 1.1 1992). 62.2% of the forms were returned duly filled in; 92.2% of the graduates are employed. 44.5% out of them are working within the field of medical informatics, 53.0% are working outside medical inform atics but within the sector of informatics and 2.2% in other fields; 0 .3% were without indication. As far as places of employment are concer ned, enterprises concentrating on hardware and software development ra nk first, followed by hospitals and medical institutions affiliated to universities. As far as fields of work are concerned, information sys tems within the health care sector (especially hospital information sy stems) as well as medical documentation predominate in the group of th ose employed within medical informatics, whereas among those not worki ng within medical informatics software engineering as well as database systems and information systems prevail. The judgement passed on the job situation was, in the main, positive. The gross annual income on t he average comes to about DM 85,000, every tenth of the graduates draw s an income of more than DM 120,000. The assessment of the curriculum on the whole is positive 68% of the graduates would take up medical in formatics again. Twenty-eight of altogether 346 graduates included int o the inquiry obtained a doctor's degree, 2 among them qualified for l ecturing in medical informatics.