A career in medical informatics

Mohammad Al-Ubaydli explains how to have a career in medical informatics1

If you want to understand why I love technology, take a look at my hearing aid. Just before starting my house job, my nightmare scenario was of being deafened by the vacuum cleaner during the ward round while my consultant barked orders at me. So I invested in a funky, digital hearing aid. With the flick of a switch, the machine promptly filters out all noise, and homes in on the speech of the person I am facing. It is quite amusing to watch my (very nice) consultant needing to ask the cleaner (very nicely) to switch the vacuum off.

Technology helps me to be a good clinician, despite my disability. Using information technology within the NHS enables the clinician to increase his or her abilities. Unfortunately, the NHS has been particularly slow in introducing computers into the system. But things are improving.

This article is about steps you can take to improve your computing skills. The more useful this exercise becomes for you, the more you can delve into the area. If, like me, you become hooked, there is the possibility of focusing your career on the new specialty of medical informatics.