Many health care providers, seeking to escape the long hours, diminishing pay and endless paperwork associated with managed care, are continuing to leave clinical practice for careers as medical informatics developers. Linux represents a terrific opportunity, as what is presently available software application-wise for the medical field is sparse, as compared to the catalog for the M$ Windows platform.

One of the best examples of health care providers that successfully developed software applications to meet market demand are the folks at Mad Scientist Software. Mad Scientist provides educational software for emergency medicine practitioners. The software proved to be very popular with fellow EMT’s, when I introduced the company’s software applications as part of a continuing education program. It’s a pretty safe bet that there is presently a demand for Linux-based EMS software. Emergency medicine practitioners with an interest in software development should take note of this opportunity.