Medicine? Simply the best!

Students of Medicine in Würzburg are simply the best, especially when it comes to their results in their Physikum exams. If we look at the results over the last ten years, they are regularly among the top five universities in the country.

Not bad when you consider that there are 36 faculties of Medicine in Germany. The fact that Würzburg always does well shows that the teaching here is well above average.

Würzburg’s score in the Physikum was not the only reason for Robert Emmerich to choose Würzburg as his university at which to study Medicine. “I was attracted by the fact that it is possible to do Experimental Medicine in tandem with the conventional degree programme. That is the ideal subject combination if you want to pursue a career in research later on,” he says. And so he moved from Cottbus to the River Main.

Actors as patients

What he liked right from the start: “We were allowed to practise doctor-patient dialogues using actors as patients,” says Robert. He was given the task of explaining to his patient that he has lung cancer. And then he had to check whether the patient had fully understood the information he had been given.

There are a number of reasons why Würzburg does so well compared with other universities. Specially trained teaching coordinators check the lectures, introduce innovative forms of teaching, and are gobetweens between the students and the academic staff.

E-learning platform

On the e-learning platform Wue-Campus, additional material is put online to supplement the lectures and tutorials. You can even see live pictures from the operating theatre, for instance if a surgeon wants to present a new operating procedure.

In the Skills Clinic in Würzburg, the emphasis is on clinical practice. Students can learn and practise the basic medical techniques on dummies at their own pace: taking blood samples, sounding lungs, doing ECGs, inserting bladder catheters, doing ultrasound scans. After practising on simulators, doing the same things with real patients is bound to be much easier.

Of course, Medicine is a very demanding degree. But still, the atmosphere among the students is good: “We help each other along, lend each other our notes and spend our spare time together,” says Robert.

Exchange programmes

What does he think of Würzburg? “Just great!” And for those students who want to get away from Würzburg for a while, the university has plenty of exchange programmes to offer. The Faculty of Medicine has ties with European countries, Japan, Brazil, Tanzania and the USA.

Lara Wilczek: “Würzburg is beautiful – at least as beautiful as my home town of Regensburg. There are great bars and plenty of cafés, there are lots of cultural activities and I like the vineyards surrounding the town. And you can get to anywhere in the city by bike, you are even allowed to take your bike on the bus or the tram without paying extra. What impresses me about doing Medicine in Würzburg is that Würzburg takes a real interest in its students. In a number of subjects there are tutorials, everyone is helpful, there is plenty of support. I think we are pretty well-off here.”

Romy Langhammer: “Why did I choose to come to university in Würzburg? Because I read that Würzburg has more hours of sunshine than most other parts of Germany. No, seriously. I came to Würzburg because Medicine in Würzburg has a very good reputation. In the university rankings you see that again and again. And I’m happy to say that I have found the programme here to be really well-organised, which means than there is only a limited amount of stress. Apart from that there is a Teddyklinik, a teddy-bear clinic run by medics and dentistry students. We can practise allaying children’s fear of doctors there. That was really good fun.”

Maximilian Franke: “I definitely wanted to study in Bavaria; there I had a choice of three universities: Munich, Erlangen and Würzburg. Munich is too big, what I had heard about Erlangen was not so good, and so I came to Würzburg. I have not regretted my decision. I liked the fact, for example that from the start we were confronted with situations a doctor is faced with in his everyday practice with actors as patients. That was good experience. What else do I like about Würzburg? The fact that thanks to a training I did when I left school, I got a job straight away in a really good bar.. and that the semester ticket means that students have really cheap transport on the buses and trams.”

Michaela Mooz:

“Actually, I wanted to go to Tübingen. The central clearing office for university places ZVS, however, sent me to Würzburg. At first I was a bit surprised, but I am now very happy to be here. Würzburg is not such a big city and is fairly compact. I really like the historical city centre. There are lots of festivals here and plenty of places to go out to at night. The Sport Uni offers different kinds of sports, which I also really like. Last semester I did fencing, at the moment I am working on improving my swimming techniques. I also do circuit training which was a great help when I took part in the Würzburg marathon.”