The National Institutes of Health (NIH), Department of Health and Human Services, is the primary federal agency for the support and conduct of biomedical research. The intramural research program is conducted mostly on a 318-acre campus in Bethesda, Maryland where the NIH runs a Clinical Electives Program to provide medical and dental students an opportunity to participate in research. The National Library of Medicine (NLM) offers the elective in medical informatics. This elective provides an overview and a vision of the state-of-the-art of medical informatics in a lecture series by nationally and internationally known speakers and offers an opportunity for independent study and research project work under the preceptorship of NIH research staff.

The lectures are presented by research staff from the NLM and other institutes at NIH and by guest speakers from other research centers. Lectures cover topics including the World Wide Web and medical informatics applications on the web; telemedicine; the Unified Medical Language System; the Visible Human project; medical expert systems; information management for biotechnology research; image analysis, manipulation and retrieval; machine learning in the biomedical domain; and medical language processing. The NLM's Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications offers students an outstanding hardware, software and mentoring environment. Examples of potential research areas for elective student participation, include:

Opportunities for independent research projects are sometimes available at other times during the year when an appropriate match of student interests and preceptor can be made. The lecture series is held only in the spring session.

This elective is intended for students who are computer literate and have some programming experience. Previous education in computer science and engineering may be helpful but is not required. Selection is based on evidence of motivation to explore clinical and research applications in informatics. The elective runs for an eight week session. The next session will run from March 1 through April 23, 2004.

If you are interested in applying, applications should be made by letter from the student, stating choice of specialty ("Medical Informatics"), desired session date (March 1 - April 23, 2004), career goals, return address, and a telephone number for contact during the day.  Medical school transcripts and letters of approval and recommendation from the Office of the Dean of Student Affairs and one instructor must be sent.  Students who are accepted will be asked to provide a signed agreement between the student's school and the NIH.  Applications should be sent to the elective coordinators,

Ms. May Cheh or

Dr. Lawrence C. Kingsland, III

National Library of Medicine

8600 Rockville Pike, Mail Stop 54

Bethesda, MD 20894-6075

Telephone: (301) 435-3193

Fax: (301) 496-0673

Email: cheh@nlm.nih.gov

Last updated: Thursday, 13 March 2003
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