They have successfully completed the most comprehensive examination of their degree programme: the first five students from the European Medical School Oldenburg-Groningen (EMS), founded in 2012, have passed the Second State Examination.
They are now embarking on their clinical year – the final stage of their medical training. Particularly pleasing is the fact that the Oldenburg students answered, on average, just under 80 per cent of the more than 300 exam questions correctly. This places School V - School of Medicine and Health Sciences at the University of Oldenburg in fifth place in a nationwide comparison of all medical faculties’ total participants. This is according to figures from the Institute for Medical and Pharmaceutical Examination Questions, which, as the central body for the Federal States, administers the State Examination. A total of 5,984 students from 37 medical Schools sat the examination in the autumn session.
“This is naturally a source of great delight for our still-young School: our first students to have passed the Second State Examination – and with results that are even above average when compared nationwide. Our model degree programme in human medicine can, without a doubt, hold its own against traditional medical training,” says the acting Dean of School VI, Prof. Dr Hans Gerd Nothwang.
40 students per class of intake
Every winter semester, 40 students commence their medical studies at the University of Oldenburg. The five prospective doctors who have passed the Second State Examination – three women and two men – belong to the first cohort that began in the winter semester of 2012/13. Four of them were able, at the time, to ‘improve’ their A-level grades through completed vocational training in the university’s own selection procedure (AdH) – a distinctive feature of Oldenburg’s model degree programme, which does not base student selection solely on Abitur results but also takes prior medical experience into account. This often pays dividends in a degree programme characterised by a strong practical focus: The trainee doctors gain experience in GP practices and outpatient care facilities from as early as the first semester.
Next spring, further students from the first cohort will sit the most comprehensive and challenging examination of the entire medical degree programme: the Second State Examination. Many of them are currently working on their major research projects in Oldenburg or Groningen – another hallmark of medical training in Oldenburg, which places great emphasis on scientific work.
