Resources & Services: Health
Students may be admitted in the Summer and Fall terms.
The University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences, through its Library and Information Science Program, offers the Medical Librarianship/Medical Informatics Specialization as part of its 36-credit Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) degree. The specialization provides an opportunity for those interested in careers in medical informatics and medical libraries, fast-growing professions with employment opportunities in hospitals; academic medical centers; health-care systems; federal, state, and local government; corporations; nursing homes; public and school libraries; and other information resource centers. In addition to a focus on medical libraries and knowledge-based information in the clinical and research setting, some students may specialize in medical informatics or consumer and patient health information sources and services.
The intent of this graduate education program is to orient prospective health information professionals to the theory, methodology, and practice of medical information management (including but not limited to medical librarianship). The iSchool curriculum is designed to support the concept that medical librarians and medical information managers are team players in the integrated information environments characteristic of modern medicine. The curriculum also supports study into the nature of health and medical information, and the traditional and the electronic means by which such information is organized, stored, and retrieved.
The Library and Information Science Program seeks students with diverse educational work and backgrounds. Any undergraduate degree and major is acceptable, but backgrounds in science, health sciences (including first professional degrees in the health sciences such as the BSN, BPharm, etc.), the human services, and computer/information science will be given preference for the Medical Informatics/Medical Librarianship specialization.
Special admission requirements for Medical Librarianship specialization:
Preference for admission to the Fast Track Medical Librarianship Track will be given to those who present evidence of the following:
[1] Undergraduate degree in health sciences, science, social science, or human services (preferred);
[2] Experience in health care or social services or medical librarianship (preferred);
[3] Verified access to at least one medical or hospital library physically accessible in (or near) their place of residence (required).
What about the job market?
Graduates of the iSchool program work in hospitals, academic medical centers, the pharmaceutical and health insurance industries, Veterans Affairs hospitals, other Federal libraries, for state and local government agencies, and in public libraries as consumer-health specialists. Standards for the accreditation of healthcare organizations call for qualified health-information professionals in every institution; the market appears particularly good for those who have a science or health sciences degree, good computing and telecommunications skills, strong interpersonal skills, and the ability to work as a team player, who are geographically mobile, and who specialize in medical informatics and/or medical librarianship during their graduate work in library and information science.
The course of study
CORE courses:
- LIS 2000 Understanding Information
- LIS 2005 Organizing and Retrieving Information
- LIS 2600 Introduction to Information Technologies
- LIS 2700 Managing Libraries and Information Services and Systems in Changing Environments
Required courses
- LIS 2585 Health Consumer Resources and Services
- LIS 2586 Health Sciences Resources and Services
- LIS 2587 Applications in Medical Informatics
- Graduate School of Public Health
- School of Medicine
- School of Dental Medicine
- School of Pharmacy
- School of Nursing
- School of Health and Rehabilitative Sciences
- School of Social Work
15 credits of Electives
The 15 credits of elective courses may include LIS 2970 Special Topics courses in the health resources area. They may also include no more than two courses from:
Field experience is strongly encouraged, to be taken by full-time and part-time students at the end of their program. Opportunities for field experience include work in academic, corporate, hospital, and government sites, and for those pursuing consumer-health information, public and school sites; a list of sites is available annually.
Sequence of Coursework
May Cohort
Summer - Year 1 |
Fall - Year 1 |
Spring - Year 1 |
LIS 2700 Managing Change in Library & Information Environments |
||
Summer - Year 2 |
Fall - Year 2 |
Spring - Year 2 |
LIS 2542 Indexing & Abstracting |
elective |
|
LIS 2901 SuperCourse in Epidemiology |
LIS 2500
Reference Resources & Services |
LIS 2537 Government Information Sources & Services |
August Cohort
Fall - Year 1 |
Spring - Year 1 |
Summer - Year 1 |
elective |
||
Fall - Year 2 |
Spring - Year 2 |
Summer - Year 3 |
LIS 2700 Managing Change in Library & Information Environments |
LIS 2901 SuperCourse in Epidemiology |
|
LIS 2500
Reference Resources |
LIS 2537 Government Information Sources & Services |
For more information about this specialization, please contact our Student Recruitment Coordinator at ftinfo@sis.pitt.edu or 412-648-3108 .