25 YEARS OF MEDICAL INFORMATICS EDUCATION AT HEIDELBERG HEILBRONN - DISCUSSION OF A SPECIALIZED CURRICULUM FOR MEDICAL INFORMATICS/

The specialized university curriculum for medical informatics (MI) at the University of Heidelberg/School of Technology Heilbronn is one of the oldest educational approaches in the field of MI and has been succ essful now for 25 years with about 1000 graduates (Diplom-Informatiker in der Medizin or Diplom-Informatiker der Medizin). It belongs to the category of dedicated master's programs for MI and is based on the con cept of MI as a medical discipline of its own. It is oriented towards the total spectrum of MI ranging from health care economics, biosignal and medical image processing, medical documentation, to information a nd knowledge processing in medicine. II is a 4.5 years program with a strong emphasis on the methodological foundations of MI and on practic al education in a number of specific laboratories. A total of 35 stude nts are admitted each semester and in total about 440 students are enr olled. The faculty consists of 17 full-time members and about 25 part- time lecturers. The authors report on characteristics, structure and c ontents of the new fifth version of the curriculum and discuss the fea tures of a specialized curriculum for MI with respect to the challenge s for MI in the 21st century. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. A ll rights reserved.