Ontological Issues in using a Description Logic to Represent Medical Concepts: Experience from GALEN

Concept models, or ‘ontologies’ represented in description logics are becoming central to many efforts in re-usable medical terminologies. Developers of any ontology must make a series of choices concerning how concepts are represented. These choices are made more difficult by the limitations of the logical formalisms in which ontologies are represented and the complexity of the pragmatics of medical usage, as well as by the sheer size and scope of medicine. Principles for ontology structure to guide developers are still poorly. This paper articulates the principles arrived at from the experience of the GALEN programme and illustrates them with an overview of the its ontology, the GALEN Common Reference Model. The complete Common Reference Model and associated material is available from the OpenGALEN foundation at www.OpenGALEN.org Citation: Appeared at IMIA WG6 Workshop: Terminology and Natural Language in Medicine. Phoenix Arixona, Nov 1999. Two appear as a two part paper: Rector, AL and Rogers JE (2002) Ontological issues in GALEN: Part I Principles and Part II High Level Schemata in Methods of Information in Medicine.