Sir: Elphick (Psychiatric Bulletin, November 2000, 24, 426-428) stated a true picture of the difficulties in bringing health information strategies into the forefront of psychiatry. He reiterated that more clinicians need more informatics training (NHS Executive, 1999). Unless the clinicians play a part in the frontline developments we will never have a good operational system. With these ideas in mind I would like to inform like-minded clinicians that there are opportunities to be trained. I am currently on a Diploma in Medical Informatics course which the forward thinking Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh have started in October 2000. This involves 12 modules (at about 75 hours per module) starting from an introduction to ‘information’ and leading to proficiencies in databases, telemedicine, electronic health records and other computer and web-related medical topics. You need a computer and connection to the internet. Apart from the initial weekend in Edinburgh and a final week in Edinburgh (2-5 years later) you can do everything else on-line. The course is challenging and lateral thinking is a useful advantage as concepts are quite wide-ranging in the introductory module.
I suggest a look on the Royal College of Surgeon's website (http://WWW.rcsed.ac.uk ) for further information.
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