What is health informatics? And what I do for a living

I recently started this blog to start a new year resolution for 2021, that is to post at least one blog post every week. But I have been writing ever since and blogging has become more of an addiction. Even if I have to painstaking write from by iPad.

You might be wondering how I’m finding time to write a blog post everyday, that is because I gave my by job as a doctor to follow my MSc in health informatics.

I just started my MSc in health informatics, and I’m half way through the first semester. So I’m no expert in health informatics.

You might have heard about health informatics or you might be new to that term, certainly where I’m coming from, health informatics is a new field.

Whenever people ask from me what I’m doing these days for a living, I can’t tell them, “well, I’m doing my MSc in health informatics”, the next question they come up with is “what is health informatics? Aren’t you supposed to be working as a doctor?”

What is health informatics?

Health informatics is a field combining medicine with information technology. Where we have to know not only medicine and health science, but also information technology.

We are not expected to be software engineers, but we need to know about the fundamentals in IT and CS. And software engineers can’t be health Informaticians because they don’t have the medical and health science knowledge.

I feel like it’s a gray area between health and IT, and you don’t fall in to either of them. Maybe it’s a totally different field or something that bridges the two fields.

My first semester consists of five modules

• Introduction to computing and networking
• Object oriented programming
• Web development and database management
• Software engineering
• Soft skills (HR and team work)

Most of these subjects are totally new to most of my colleagues. Most of us have leaned anatomy and physiology in our work life instead of IT.

Web development, database management and object oriented programming are the ones that I’m more familiar with. There are things in networking and software engineering that are new for me.

The whole MSc has four semesters, which will be covered in two years.

I don’t have to work as a doctor during my day time while I’m doing my MSc, I’m getting paid to do my MSc. However, I can work as a private practitioner during the evenings.

Because of this I have time to sneak a blog post or two when I have free time.

Why I didn’t like working as a doctor

I don’t like the stress of working as a doctor, I’m not sure in other countries, but where I’m coming from, I find it extremely stressful to be a doctor.

The stress is coming from patients as well as from the workload that we have to undertake. The only way out is to become a consultant which will release some of work load related stress or move to a non clinical field.

I tried my luck in surgery, but I gave up follow I surgery because I felt that having time to spend on yourself is better than anything else. So now I feel I have more time to invest on myself than anything else.

What’s next

I will be finishing my first semester in February, and then I’ll be moving to the next semester. I’ll be taking it one semester at a time.