Software engineering in medical informatics: the academic hospital as learning environment

In 2001, the revised course Software Engineering has been implemented in the Medical Informatics curriculum at the Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam. This 13 weeks, full-time course consists of three parts: internship, theory and project. All parts are provided in problem-oriented manner with special attention for relevant skills such as project management, documentation and presentation. During the internship, students observe how health care professionals at several hospital wards work and how information supply is organized. In the theory part, students study concepts and methods of software engineering by means of case descriptions and self-directed learning. During the project, they apply their acquired knowledge to an observed, clinical information problem and complete several stages of the software engineering process. Evaluation by inquiry showed that, compared to other courses, students spent more time, and distributed their time more evenly, during the whole period of the course. In conjunction with theory, a combination of internship and project in a hospital seems to provide a surplus value compared to a practical in a computer laboratory. The integration of software theory, clinical practice and problem-based approach, contributed to the enthusiastic, intensive and realistic way students learned in this important topic that might be chosen as a future profession.