The planned European Medical School Oldenburg-Groningen, which is due to start its studies in the winter semester 2012/13, has reached another milestone: Prof. Dr Eckhart Georg Hahn, currently Dean of the School of Health at Witten/Herdecke University, will take up his position as the future Dean of the Medical Faculty at the University of Oldenburg on 1 August. He is already working as a founding advisor. In addition to the founding of the School and the establishment of the European Medical School Oldenburg-Groningen, he will drive forward the creation of a university hospital with the Oldenburg clinics. "The establishment of the European Medical School is a major project with many stages. Today, another important milestone has been reached. With Professor Hahn, the School of Medicine has an excellent founding dean who will actively drive forward this important pioneering work," said Lower Saxony's Science Minister Prof Dr Johanna Wanka. University President Prof Dr Babette Simon explained: "With Professor Hahn, we are gaining a proven expert in medical education and an outstanding science manager for this important and forward-looking position". Hahn studied medicine in Kiel, Glasgow and Hamburg and also gained a Master's degree in Medical Education in Bern. After completing his State Examination in Medicine, Hahn became a scientific assistant at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried near Munich in 1971. In 1973, he moved to the Medical Clinic at the University of Marburg, where he qualified as a professor in 1978. As a Heisenberg scholarship holder, he spent time abroad at the Royal Free Medical School in London and the First Department of Medicine at Chiba University (Japan). From 1982 to 1987, he held the professorship for Internal Medicine at the Steglitz Clinic of the Free University of Berlin. This was followed by an appointment as Rorer Professor of Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia (USA), where he also held the position of Director of the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. In 1988, Hahn was appointed Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and also became Director of Medical Clinic 1 at the University Hospital. After more than 20 years at the head of the clinic, he retired in 2009. Since then, he has been Dean at the University of Witten/Herdecke. In addition to research and teaching, he was Chair of the Bavarian State Health Council and a member of the Board and Chair of the Society for Biomedical Engineering in the Association of Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Information Technology. He is a member of numerous committees, including Chair of the Society for Medical Education.