Interview with Milton Corn

Abstract

Milton Corn begins the interview discussing the definition of health informatics and the early National Library of Medicine Research Training in Medical Informatics programs, including the University of Minnesota’s training program. Dr. Corn describes his first introduction to medical informatics while serving as dean of Georgetown University School of Medicine and his decision to join the NLM in 1990. He describes at length the evolution of the NLM Research Training Program and the related history of the University of Minnesota’s training program based on the evaluations the NLM performed of the training program every five years. He discusses the University of Minnesota and Mayo Clinic’s efforts to establish a collaborative training program with Arizona State University. He also discusses the implications of Minnesota’s decision not to fully pursue bioinformatics when the NLM shifted the focus of its training program in the 1990s. Dr. Corn goes on to discuss the development of the Clinical and Translational Science Awards and the influence of the awards on health informatics research.