German Medical Schools

IMO german medical education is excellent. i considered applying to one of the medical schools there but i decided against it cos i didn't want to go through the whole process of learning a new language, however, in retrospect i don't think it would have been such a bad idea. i mean education is free and i absolutely love german culture plus the basic science training in germany is probably the best in the world(IMO).

 

I mean, it's a KNOWN FACT that German doctors spend 37% of their time surfing for porn on the web.

Just kidding, I think you know that German med schools are sehr gut, don't you?

 

Considering I speak German, studying in Germany was an option for me but the medical degree there lasts at least 6 years (12 semesters) compared to 5 in the UK for undergrads and the cirricula there are not as integrated as they are in the UK, i.e. there is no patient contact in the "Vorklinik" and this dillusions many German medical students.
One of the things I dislike about the German system is that you can get a place at a medical school with an Abitur grade of 3, something (which is very mediocre) and you don't even have had to have studied chemistry (which is a prerequisite in the UK) at school! What sort of doctors are they going to produce if it's so easy to get in??

Here's a link to a page from the Student British Medical Journal www.studentbmj.com with an account from a German medical student (by the way, she's 55(!!) so again you can see how easier it is to get in there)
http://www.studentbmj.com/international/europe/germany/intsubs/germany1.html

The international section of the website is worth a visit.

Also, the wages during the AiP (equivalent to SHO in the UK and resident in the US) are crap! I read an article from the Deutsches ?rzteblatt about a 30-year-old Assistenzarzt (SHO, resident) who was earning a meagre ?900 a month.

 

900 Euros???

Christ, I always thought they made tons of money down there. But then, don't you think they start making big bucks after residency? US docs make quite little during residency compared to Europe but their wages after residency can't be beaten anywhere in Europe (I think). Maybe Germany is the same.

Man, it took her 55 years to get admitted to med school........?!? that's gotta account for a lot of disappointed walks back from the mailbox, eh?

You speak German, huh? I thought brits had French or even Spanish as your primary second language in school. That thing in the world cup was a big fluke, by the way.

Later.

Oh no, I actually had a question for you. Some people from my school were talking about doing their pre-registration house officer year in England. Just curious, are those spots hard to get or what? In our socialist hell hole we can get sent anywhere in the country for that whole year, even Greenland and the Faeroe Islands!! More and more people are going either to England, Sweden or Norway so they at least get an experience out of it.

 

Ehh...let me get this straight...you need to get top grades and results in school to make a good/competent doctor??? And medical schools which require higher grades for admission are better medical schools?!?!?

There was an article in the BMJ a few months ago about factors which contribute to success in medical school and postgraduate competency...previous academic performance isn't as important as you'd think...
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/324/7343/952

 

Bellkicker,

no, doctors here (I'm in Germany at the moment) are not the best European earners. A German Hausarzt (GP, family doctor) earns about the same as a British GP. The cash starts pouring in if you're lucky enough to get a position at a Uniklinik.

Yeah 55 must be a record eh? I'm not ageist but you have to draw the line somewhere...

Ah, deutsche Sprache, schwere Sprache.... The first foreign language in British schools is French and German is usually the second but some schools have in deed replaced this with Spanish. Well at least I'm proof that Brits *can* master foreign languages!

Re PRHO year, I would say to those interested students that they should contact the hospitals/NHS trusts directly. Ya never know if ya don't ask. Other than that they can face being condemned to Greenland for a year (I wouldn't mind going there actually! But patient contact must be pretty minimal, eh? )

Trinners,

you don't understand just how crap an Abitur grade of 3,x is. I'm sure most Irish admissions tutors would baulk at it.

How would you feel if you worked your butt off at school to get decent grades for medical school, only to find out that the applicant standing behind you got crap grades and got admitted and you didn't. I know grades are *not* the be-all and end-all but a profession of such high calibre like medicine needs members who can perform under pressure and doing well in exams is a sign of this.

The point I was making was that I found it unbelievable how easy it is to get a place at a German medical school and you must admit that if it's easy to get accepted then the quality of doctors produced is going to be affected to a certain extent. The BMJ article was an interesting read, thanks.

 

miscalculated- is that just the bare minimum requirement that makes you eligible for entry to medicine in Germany?

In Trinity College, for example, the minimum requirement is at least a higher level grade B and a higher level grade C in two of physics, chemistry, biology, physics/chemistry, agricultural science. However, allocation of places is strictly merit-based and with courses such as medicine...you usually need to get AAAAAA in the Leaving or AAA at A-levels to get in...and even then if a group of people get the same grades and it's the last place...random selection is used to allocate the place. The system is a totally unpredictable and a bitch...

Does no one want to study medicine in Germany...or is there just loads of places?