GeduMed.net study

"GeduMed.net" - Healthy through medical school: an international DFG network

The German Research Foundation (DFG) is funding a network of scientists from Germany and Austria with around €23,000 to investigate the health of medical students. A particular focus is to be placed on prevention and health promotion. The aim of the network, which will run for at least two years, is to jointly clarify the state of research on the question of what keeps medical students healthy during their studies.

National and international studies show that the health of prospective doctors deteriorates significantly during their studies. In order to enable as many medical students as possible to "study healthily" and to strengthen them for the future challenges of their career goal, the network is preparing a multi-center observational study to identify protective influences on student health. The long-term goal is the development and implementation of health-promoting interventions, both at the individual and the setting level, from which other degree programs can also benefit in the future.

The network consists of:

Dr. med. S. Fuchs and Dipl.-Soz. M. Heise (both Section of General Medicine, University of Halle-Wittenberg), Dr. med. Th. Kötter (Institute for Social Medicine and Epidemiology, University of Lübeck), Dr. rer. medic. Dipl.-Soz. K. Voigt, MPH and H. Riemenschneider, MA, MPH (both Department of General Medicine, TU Dresden), Dr. med. univ. C. Vajda (University Clinic for Medical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Medical University of Graz), Dr. rer. nat. Linda Sanftenberg and Prof. Dr. med. J. Schelling (both Institute of General Medicine, LMU Munich).

Funding code: FU 1073/2-1

Coordination: Dr. Fuchs (Halle; stephan.fuchs@medizin.uni-halle.de)

Spokesperson: Dr. Kötter (Lübeck; thomas.koetter@uksh.de)

• Kötter T, Fuchs S, Heise M, Riemenschneider H, Sanftenberg L, Vajda C, Voigt K. What keeps medical students healthy and well? A systematic review of observational studies on protective factors for health and well-being during medical education. BMC Med Educ. 2019 Apr 1;19(1):94. doi: 10.1186/s12909-019-1532-z.
• Schelling J, Voigt K, Riemenschneider H, Kötter T, Fuchs S, Sanftenberg L, Vajda C, Heise M. What keeps future (general) practitioners healthy? ZFA 2017; 93(2): 89-90. doi: 10.3238/zfa.2017.0089-0090