This study describes an analysis of 1520 papers that were published in six medical informatics journals from 1992 through 1996, and indexed in NLM's MEDLINE. Of retrieved publications the countries of origin were determined, and insight in the subject of the publication was obtained by analysing the used MeSH terms. The main conclusion is that despite the fact that publications in medical informatics stem from a wide international community, scientific recognition can still not be demonstrated by high impact factors of journals.