January-February, 1992 AMERICAN VETERINARY COMPUTER SOCIETY NEWSLETTER Steve Waldhalm (Mississippi State) - President; R. Lee Pyle (Virginia Tech) - Secretary Treasurer; Richard B. Talbot (Virginia Tech) - President elect; Ronald D. Smith (Illinois) - Newsletter Editor. IN THIS ISSUE -American Veterinary Computer Society bulletin board dismantled. -New Computer Speeds Colic Diagnosis. -Modular Medical Library. -CD ROM Packages Offer Opportunity for Academic Journals. -Personal Computers Will Make Solitude a Scarce Resource. -Hypertext Still Languishing in Market Limbo. -Microsoft Reaches 10,000 Employees. -First Online Computer *Accredited* CE Courses Offered. -Medical Informatics Training Opportunities at the University of Missouri. -Guide To Computer Jargon. SOCIETY NEWS From the Editor. This is my first AVCS newsletter and the first AVCS newsletter for 1992. I am delighted to have the opportunity to serve the AVCS in this way, and hope to keep readers abreast of the exciting developments in veterinary informatics. "Medical informatics" is a very broad discipline, and we're all part of it. The following definition, borrowed from the University of Missouri (see program announcements below), is a good one: "Medical informatics is the application of computers to health care. Medical informatics goes beyond the use of the computer as a computational tool and extends into the process of knowledge representation, acquisition, storage, retrieval, and manipulation largely to support reasoning, decision-making, and learning." Veterinary informatics was the focus of the recently unsuccessful attempt to establish an AVMA-recognized "American College of Veterinary Informatics". If you received this newsletter you're probably actively involved in some aspect of veterinary informatics. I would be most interested in receiving news from the "trenches" that can be shared with other AVCS members through the Newsletter. As Newsletter Editor I see my role as a clearinghouse and disseminator of veterinary informatics news. You can help by sending me news items. No item is too small to be included. I can be reached by mail, telephone, FAX, or e-mail at any of the following addresses: Dr. Ronald D. Smith, Editor AVCS Newsletter College of Veterinary Medicine University of Illinois 2001 South Lincoln Urbana, IL 61801 Telf: 217-333-2449 FAX: 217-333-4628 America Online: RDSmith Bitnet/Internet: funding@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu American Veterinary Computer Society bulletin board dismantled. The Bulletin Board hosted at Mississippi State University for the American Veterinary Computer Society has been dismantled. I encourage anyone who might be affected by this decision to utilize the Veterinary Information Network (VIN) on America Online or the forum on CompuServe (GO PETS) area 17 as these are far more active and informative sources than the AVCS BBS has been. It is encouraging to see the increased interest in telecommunication that is evident in these two services. You may send wish to respond to this decision by contacting SteveW99 or TALBOTD through AOL mail. From Steve Waldhalm, Mississippi State, via America Online HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE New Computer Speeds Colic Diagnosis. According to a report in the Fall, 1991 issue of the Morris Animal Foundation's "Companion Animal News", a computer-assisted diagnosis program called the "Colic Profile" is being marketed to equine practitioners to assist in the management of equine colic. The diagnostic/prognostic algorithm is based on epidemiologic studies on 2,700 colic cases by Drs. John Reif, Ted Stashak, Mo Salman, Mathew Reeves, and the late Charles Curtis. The study was funded by the Morris Animal Foundation. The program uses data such as peripheral pulse rate, capillary refill time, and rectal exam findings to predict the patient's chances for a favorable prognosis from surgery or medical intervention. The program was validated through study of an additional 700 colic cases. The validation study was supported by grants from the Tandy Foundation and Arabian Horse Trust. In 1988 the Morris Animal Foundation's Colic Panel accepted the completed study and recommended Dave Fisher, Jr., Productions, Inc (800-444-7215) to complete development and marketing of the hand-held computer form of the Equine Colic Profile. A portion of the price of each unit goes to Morris Animal Foundation for colic research. Modular Medical Library. CD ROM technology is being put to good use as a medium for distributing quarterly updates of standard medical reference materials to doctors. Teton Data Systems (the company was founded by a Wyoming physician) publishes a CD ROM called Stat-Ref. Version 3.0 is getting a major upgrade with a new front end and search tools built on the Personal Librarian engine (see "Big Words," Macworld News, July 1991). The CD will contain 20 locked volumes that can be opened by calling in a credit card number to obtain a password. Stat-Ref 3.0 will be able to rank search results by relevance based on frequency and proximity of search terms and will have hyperlinks to jump between references. Price depends on the number of volumes unlocked. Teton Data Systems, 718/729-1888. COMMENTARY CD ROM Packages Offer Opportunity for Academic Journals. Jerry Pournelle, a noted science fiction writer and computer columnist, commented on a "major entrepreneurial opportunity" for commercial CD-ROM publishers in the December 2, 1991 issue of InfoWorld. He was addressing the increasing difficulties that university libraries are having in maintaining subscriptions to scholarly journals in the face of rising subscription fees and reduced budgets. "Does it strike you as odd," Pournelle asks, "that university scholars produce all this research and these articles? They then give them away to publishers, who sell the information back to the universities at prices the universities can't afford." His solution is for libraries to form consortia to get groups of journals poublished on CD ROM. By guaranteeing a market commercial CD ROM publishers would compete for the chance to do the job. According to Pournelle, "If 300 university libraries would guarantee to subscribe to a CD ROM for $200, the Bureau of Electronic Publishing, Quanta Press, or another CD ROM publisher, would be delighted to do most of the work of gathering, indexing, and mastering the information onto a CD ROM. They'd also sell additional copies of the CD ROM to subscribers for a nominal fee." Personal Computers Will Make Solitude a Scarce Resource. According to an article in the December 23, 1991 issue of InfoWorld by Paul Saffo, "The steady advance of computing and personal communications will make solitude the scarcest of resources, obtainable only at considerable personal and financial cost." Saffo continues, "Hints of this trend can be seen in the current debate over ensuring citizen privacy in the face of ever more powerful credit databases, telephone-caller identification, etc. Daily life is nothing but a string of transactions from credit card purchases to phone calls. Because these transactions are mediated by computers, each action adds to a spreading electronic wake that we leave behind us as we go through life. A few bits of matched data can tell volumes about us all, a conclusion implicit in the informal motto of the direct marketing industry: "We know more about you than your mother." "As connectivity becomes the inexpensive norm, disconnectivity is certain to gain in status. Executives will seek a special kind of one-way solitude, using computers and communications to stay on top of outside events even as they jealously guard their privacy. Mail filters and automated call screening will be sure bets in the decade ahead, helping the elite create solitude-preserving information black holes that provide them with broad world views while preserving privacy and anonymity." Hypertext Still Languishing in Market Limbo. According to Jean-Louis Gassee, former Apple Computer VIP, hypertext has failed to have a significant impact on computer-assisted access to information because of the sheer size of currently available electronic information and the number of "links" that would have to be created to achieve hypertext nirvana, e.g., an "infinite network of references, jumping from newspaper to book, from scholarly journal to samizdats and electronic palimpsets." He projects the number of links required to cover a typical New York Times weekday issue to illustrate the point. Gassee writes, "How many hyperlinks per page? Probably several hundred. If this number seems high, think of how many different kinds of readers and hyperlinks are needed to fulfill the hypertext promise. Consider the first page of the Business Day section. In the Digest column, there are about 20 items; each one easily generates five to 1O references to sources, full text of declarations, releases, IRS rulings, statistics, past issues and agency dispatches. And that's not counting glossaries and dictionaries. So, for a single issue of the NYT, for the links to be rich enough to be taken for granted, we need thousands, if not tens of thousands of connections. To be useful, text links cannot be established by computers because "Computers manipulate symbol strings much better than humans, but humans extract meaning from symbol strings much better than computers." Commentary by Jean-Louis Gassee MacWeek 01.06.92 Microsoft Reaches 10,000 Employees. Microsoft Corporation, one of the largest and most successful software companies in the world, has grown from 5,600 workers 20 months ago to 10,000 at the end of 1991. That's the population of a small city. The company posted $580.5 million in sales for the first-quarter of fiscal 1992 which ended September 30, -- up 57 percent over last year. According to Johnston, the secret of its success is "an extremely flat management organization, with few layers of management between the lowest worker and chairman Bill Gates. The company keeps development teams small -- often less than 10 to a team and entrepreneurial." EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES First Online Computer *Accredited* CE Courses Offered. The VETERINARY INFORMATION NETWORK, an information service residing on America Online, offered the first indepth continuing education course in which veterinarians participated from the comfort of their home or practice. The first course covered Small Animal Endocrinology. The instructors for the Small Animal Endocrinology course were: 1. Duncan C. Ferguson, VMD,PhD,Dip ACVIM, Dip ACVCP, Univ. of Georgia-course director 2. Mark Peterson, DVM , Diplomate ACVIM, Animal Medical Center 3. Paul D. Pion, DVM, Diplomate ACVIM (Cardiology) Univ of CA Davis 4. David Bruyette, DVM, Diplomate ACVIM Kansas State University 5. Robert Kemppainen, DVM,PhD, Auburn University 6. Carol Zerbe, DVM, PhD, Diplomate ACVIM, Univ of Pennsylvania 7. Margarethe Hoenig, Dr. med. vet., Ph.D., Univ. of Georgia 8. Scott A. Brown, VMD, PhD, Diplomate ACVIM, University of Georgia 9. Alice Wolf, DVM, Diplomate ACVIM Texas A&M University 10. Monica Mastin, DVM, Quarterly Index and Veterinary Interface, Inc. Future courses will be offered in the following areas: fluid and electrolyte therapy, small animal, small animal cardiology, infectious diseases, and oncology. If you are interested in any of these courses, or for more information call the VIN offices: (404) 354-8372 or (916) 756-4881 From Duncan C. Ferguson and Paul D. Pion Medical Informatics Training Opportunities at the University of Missouri. The training program at the University of Missouri - Columbia accomodates both predoctoral and postdoctoral level individuals who wish to pursue an academic career in medical informatics. The program is very open to medical novices, especially CIS graduates. We have a program of core courses which is very interdisciplinary, a research project in numerous areas including artificial intelligence and expert systems in medicine, and the opportunity to work for a degree which is tailored to the individual. Applications for fellowships beginning July 1, 1992 are due by March 1, 1992. Pre- and postdoctoral fellowships are available for students interested in MS and PhD programs, and short-term fellowships for students in medicine and veterinary medicine. Dr. Alan Hahn, AVCS member, is the veterinary representative. Applications due March 1, 1992 for the 1992-93 academic year. For further information contact: Joyce Mitchell, Ph.D. Director, Medical Informatics 605 Lewis Hall University of Missouri Columbia, MO 65211 314-882-6966 fax: 314-884-4270 CLOSING SHOTS Guide To Computer Jargon "Announced" - Refers to product still in the early stage of development. "Beta" - Refers to product still in the early stage of development. "Shipped" - Refers to product still in the early stage of development. "Groupware" - Clever marketing ploy in which buying just one copy of a program gets you nothing. "Multimedia" - The concept of jaded computer executives who wish computers were more fun. "Object" - Buzzword of the '90s. See also Groupware. "Personal Information Manager" - Code words for chaos. From the January 6, 1992 issue of MacWeek Short-Term Fellowships in Medical Informatics Short-term fellowships are available for interested and qualified students in medicine and veterinary medicine. Medical informatics is the application of computers to health care, and includes knowledge representation, acquisition, storage, retrieval, and manipulation to support medical reasoning, decision-making, and learning. Medical Informatics fellows could work on such research topics as: Creating Computer Assisted Instruction programs to teach concepts, discrimination skills, and problem solving for health care professionals (medical, veterinary medical, nursing, allied health) Medical image analysis and transmission Full-text information retrieval and search heuristics The efficacy and outcome of student searching of the medical literature Expert systems development and evaluation in: mental retardation and behavior modification diagnoses of lamenesses in veterinary species electrocardiographic analysis in varied species assessment of nursing home care Computer-assisted identification of dermatologic and rhinologic lesions Computerized interventions to change medical practice patterns and patient compliance Fellowships are for periods of two to six months. Applicants should submit a transcript of their college work, a two-page typed statement indicating their past achievements and future interest in medicine or veterinary medicine, computer, health science, library, mathematics, statistics, and education areas and two letters of recommendation. We particularly invite women and minority applicants. For further information contact: Joyce A. Mitchell, PhD, Director Medical Informatics School of Medicine 605 Lewis Hall Columbia, MO 65211 314-882-6966 CACJM@UMCVMB.MISSOURI.EDU Predoctoral Fellowships in Medical Informatics University of Missouri Predoctoral fellowships are available for qualified applicants seeking an academic career in medical informatics. Medical informatics is the application of computers to health care. Medical informatics goes beyond the use of the computer as a computational tool and extends into the process of knowledge representation, acquisition, storage, retrieval, and manipulation largely to support reasoning, decision-making, and learning. Most successful candidates will emphasize such course work as artificial intelligence, expert systems, database management systems, computer networks, and medical subject analysis in addition to a research project. Some candidates may pursue a Master's degree in library science with a health science emphasis. Still other candidates may wish to combine their backgrounds in educational psychology, biological science, or biostatistics with health science applications. Fellowships would be for two to three years, and fellows would obtain a PhD degree preparatory for an academic career in medical informatics, or a Master's degree in Library and Information Science. Predoctoral fellows will receive a stipend of about $8,500. The fellowship waives most of the costs of tuition, fees, and medical insurance. Fellows also receive travel funds to participate in certain scientific meetings. Applicants should submit a transcript of their graduate record, a C.V. (include names, addresses, and phone numbers of 3 references), and a two-page typed statement indicating their past achievements in medical, computer, health science, library, mathematics/statistics, and education areas, and a statement indicating their interest in an academic career in medical informatics. Successful applicants can expect to begin study in July or August 1992, select a mentor in their area of interest to work on research projects, and to take interdisciplinary course work in medical informatics. We particularly invite women and minority applicants. For further information contact: Joyce A. Mitchell, PhD, Director Medical Informatics School of Medicine 605 Lewis Hall University of Missouri Columbia, MO 65211 314-882-6966 Postdoctoral Fellowships in Medical Informatics University of Missouri Postdoctoral fellowships are available for qualified applicants seeking academic training in medical informatics. Medical informatics is the application of computers to health care. Medical informatics goes beyond the use of the computer as a computational tool and extends into the process of knowledge representation, acquisition, storage, retrieval, and manipulation largely to support reasoning, decision-making, and learning. Successful applicants can have a variety of backgrounds. Some applicants will have an MD, DO or DVM degree and be near completion of a residency in a medical or veterinary specialty. Other applicants might have a PHD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Information Science, and be interested in health applications; or would have a PhD in Molecular Biology or Biological Sciences, with interests in computer science. Still other applicants might have a PhD in biostatistics, or educational psychology, with course work in health related areas. Fellowships would be for two to three years, and fellows could obtain a PhD or Master's degree. Fellows will receive a stipend ranging from $18,600 to $32,300, depending on experience and prior training. The fellowship waives most if not all of the costs of tuition and fees. Fellows also receive travel funds to participate in certain scientific meetings. Applicants should submit a transcript of their graduate record, a C.V. (include names, addresses, and phone numbers of 3 references), and a two-page typed statement indicating their past achievements in medical, computer, health science, library, mathematics/statistics, and education areas, and a statement indicating their commitment to and interest in academic career in medical informatics. Successful applicants can expect to begin study in July or August 1992, select a mentor in their area of interest to work on research projects, and to take interdisciplinary course work in medical informatics. We particularly invite women and minority applicants. For further information contact: Joyce A. Mitchell, PhD, Director Medical Informatics School of Medicine 605 Lewis Hall University of Missouri Columbia, MO 65211 314-882-6966