Masic: Historical Background of Medical Informatics Development

In Nice, France 0n May 28th, 2022, during the 32nd MIE 2022 Conference was promoted the book “Historical Background of Medical Informatics Development”, edited by EFMI Honorary Fellow, Academician Professor Emeritus Izet Masic. MD, Ph.D

The promoter of the book was Catherine Chronaki, current President of the European Federation for Medical Informatics (EFMI) (Figures 1 and 2).

Reviewers of this book are Academicians and Professors, and also very influential Medical informatics experts from the USA (Marion Ball), Croatia (Gjuro Dezelic), and Serbia (Slobodan Jankovic), North Macedonia (Doncho Donev), and Bosnia and Herzegovina (Armin Skrbo).

But also a few important Medical informatics experts within the scientific and academic field of Medical informatics expressed their very positive comments about the idea and contents of this book: “Congratulations. A wonderful contribution to Medical informatics.” (Ed Hammond), “Great book! Thank you for keeping our history alive!” (Elizabeth Borycki), “Impressive. Bravo. My hearty congratulations.” (Doncho. M. Donev), “Great! Congratulations!” (George Mihalas), “Congratulations on the publication.” (George M. Hripcsak), “This publication is an absolutely incredible issue, such a detailed history with magnificent pictures and descriptions. You are to be congratulated on this contribution you’ve made to our profession.” (Marion Ball), “I am in total agreement with Marion’s words. To produce a publication like this takes hard work.” (Terry Hannan), “Congratulations Izet. This is a great document.” (Vimla Patel), etc.

The book contains 24 chapters, written by the most influential Medical informatics scientists and experts in the world as authors of the chapters in the book: Marion Ball, USA (Chapter 19), Barry Barber, United Kingdom (Chapter 7), Patrice Degoulet, France (Chapter 20), Francis Roger France, Belgium (Chapter 5), Gjuro Dezelic, Croatia (Chapter 14), Arie Hasman, The Netherlands (Chapter 8), Jacob Hofdijk, The Netherlands (Chapter 17), Ilias Iakovidis, Belgium (Chapter 22), Casimir A. Kulikowski, Canada (Chapter 16), Izet Masic, Bosnia and Herzegovina (Chapters 1, 3, 4, 9, 11, 12, 13, 18, 23, 24), George Mihalas, Romania (Chapters 2, 10), Hans Peterson, Sweden (Chapter 6), Gustav Wagner, Austria (Chapter 21), Jana Zvarova, Czech Republic (Chapter 15) (in alphabetical order).

Marion Ball written in her review of the book: “Professor Izet Masic has made such incredible contributions to the field of Medical Informatics throughout his life, and he still does not consider stopping. He still has so much energy and so much more to contribute. As always, he keeps us informed of his activities and shares with us all. His incredible energy is visible through publications, books, and papers that he has contributed throughout his life. He is a remarkable individual and I will never forget how Izet came to International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) General Assembly meeting in Dresden in September of 1994, when I was president of IMIA, driving through war zones to support the IMIA by including Bosnian-Herzegovinian Society of Medical Informatics to IMIA family. Izet Masic is a remarkable gentleman, and we are all better off for all that he has done and contributed to the field of Medical informatics.

Let me take this opportunity again to congratulate Izet on his incredible new publication entitled “Historical Background of Medical Informatics Development” as a great and important collection of contributions by the most influential scientists and experts within Biomedical scientific and academic fields, who have written historical facts about the development of Biomedical Informatics during past 50 years. My respect and congratulations to Izet for this excellent work.”

Finally, one of the pioneers of Medical Informatics in the world, academician professor of Medical informaticsGjuro Dezelic (Zagreb, Croatia), about Izet Masic’s ideas to collect important facts about the history of Medical informatics, was speaking about Izet’s ideas discussed during his chairing of MIE 2009 Conference in Sarajevo in 2009 – Izet Masic, in explaining the congress motto “Medical Informatics in a United and Healthy Europe”, clearly states that the motto: a) incorporates the role of medical informatics as a scientific, technological, philosophical, and medical discipline, and b) raises the question as to whether and to what extent medical informatics is contributing to a new scientific, cultural, social and political community in Europe.

Izet Masic also calls attention that “the expansion of technological power raises the need for ethical responsibility and for the preservation and promotion of human health”. Let us hope that the result of MIE 2009 will really be a contribution to the advance of human health in Europe streaming to unity. The mandate to organize the MIE 2009 Congress in Sarajevo is the crown of all efforts of Prof. Masic, struggling for it for a long time, supported by the Society for Medical Informatics of Bosnia and Herzegovina he is leading for years so successfully. Credit should also be given to EFMI, by deciding for Sarajevo, to support the building of “new medical, biomedical, and health informatics bridges between the western and eastern parts of the European world”.

These words were the basic key that Izet Masic decided to complete his knowledge and experiences collected during 30 years of his activities in EFMI and IMIA associations as the official representative of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian Society of Medical informatics, where he contributed a lot of educational and historical contributions, including also his personal achievements in the development of medical informatics.

For Izet Masic contributions to the development of Medical informatics worldwide, EFMI Council awarded him during the Closing ceremony of the MIE 2022 Conference in Nice on 30th May 2022 for his 30 years of EFMI Council member activities (Figure 3).

Articles from Acta Informatica Medica are provided here courtesy of the Academy of Medical Sciences of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina