“Continuing medical education takes place in institutions with higher levels of care around the world”
05.07.2023 17:59
The planned hospital reform wants to give so-called Level II hospitals, clinics with the lowest level of care, a focus in medical training and continuing education. “In conjunction with other clinics, they should be given a central role in the further training of doctors and nursing staff,” says the key points paper. “These plans are completely incomprehensible,” criticizes Professor Dr. med. Thomas Schmitz-Rixen, Secretary General of the German Society of Surgery (DGCH). “All over the world, further education and training takes place in the institutions with the highest level of care and usually has an academic background.”
The DGCH thus joins the criticism of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV), the umbrella association of specialists in Germany (SpiFa), the Federal Medical Association and the German Association of General Practitioners. “In fact, this would be a catastrophe for the quality of further medical training, which would be set back far,” emphasizes Schmitz-Rixen. Further training requires knowledge of a wide range of cases. “Prospective specialists must see common but also rarer diseases in order to develop a deeper medical understanding,” emphasizes the DGCH General Secretary.
Half-baked proposal harms the planned hospital reform
The young doctors in the Level II clinics would also be unable to get to know emergency care or specialized subjects such as gynecology or cardiology, not to mention the various surgical disciplines. This is only the case in houses with higher care levels. “Neither the density and depth of cases required for further training nor the necessary human resources can be guaranteed at the base,” criticizes Schmitz-Rixen. “The impression arises that the aim is to use prospective specialist medical staff to fill expected staffing gaps in Level II clinics,” says the DGCH General Secretary. “Such a half-baked proposal unfortunately damages the planned hospital reform, which we consider to be very useful and worth supporting in principle,” adds the surgeon. In Germany, prospective specialists in major disciplines currently complete more than 60 percent of their further training in university hospitals, as the first results of ongoing analyzes show, which are due to be published soon.
More than 400,000 specialists work in Germany, 90 percent of whom work in outpatient and inpatient areas. Assistant doctors can choose from 49 specialist training courses that last between four and six years.