On 1 October 2012, 28 women and twelve men began their medical studies at the University of Oldenburg, causing a sensation beyond the region.

They were the first human medicine students at a newly founded School of Medicine - something that had not happened in Germany for 20 years. This was preceded by years of struggle for a medical university location in the north-west and the Oldenburg model degree programme "European Medical School". The unprecedented support of the university from business, society and politics throughout the region was crucial to its success. Together with its cooperating hospitals, Klinikum Oldenburg, Evangelisches Krankenhaus Oldenburg, Karl-Jaspers-Klinik and Pius-Hospital Oldenburg, the university succeeded in closing the previously gaping university medicine gap in the north-west.

Then as now, there was no shortage of prospective students: in the first year, there were around 1,200 applications for just 40 study places. The model degree programme offered and still offers a unique feature: the close cooperation with the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen not only provides an insight into the Dutch healthcare system, but also enables students to complete part of their training at the partner university.

It is not only the Human Medicine degree programme that has grown steadily in recent years and now offers places to 120 first-year students every year. Research at School V - School of Medicine and Health Sciences has also continued to develop. Good news from Hanover in 2024 has caused great joy in Oldenburg: the state government has announced that it will provide University Medicine Oldenburg (UMO) with an additional 125 million euros until 2028. This will not only enable the final expansion stage planned in 2012 to increase the number of first-year students to 200 per year, but will also allow the planning and construction of urgently needed research and teaching buildings at the site to begin.