HIE Wire   back to index

The Journal of Open Source Medical Computing (www.josmc.org) began with the success of its older brother, Linux Medical News (www.linuxmednews.com).  Linux Medical News opened its doors on 30 March 2000 with the goal of fixing something its founder thought was quite broken: medical education and practice. The site quickly gained devotees who were of like mind.  Many had seen the historical trend of medical software — great promise followed by great expense, followed by great disappointment — occur over and over again. Many who read Linux Medical News believed that free and open source software was a good fit for medical education and practice because it could react to changing conditions and was inherently interoperable. It had the added advantage of spreading development and maintenance costs across multiple organisations.

Linux Medical News from its inception meant to be different than ‘just another boring medical site’.  Fast moving, it had irreverent humour and a personal touch partly in reaction to the usual stodgy, hierarchical nature of medicine, but also to remain entertaining as well as informative.  Despite its success, a need was felt for a more scholarly, peer-reviewed publication. As a result, the founder of Linux Medical News set out to erect a site that ultimately has become the Journal of Open Source Medical Computing.

The journal opened its doors this week with a first call for papers on any scholarly work related to free and open-source medical software and hardware.

Medicine is sceptical, so the journal's goal is to objectively research the subject so that scientific data of its effectiveness (or lack thereof) in medicine can be presented.

If successful, the journal may open the door for great strides in the efficiency and accuracy of delivering medicine followed by great improvements in the way medicine is taught. Lofty goals indeed.