Kathrin Wandscher and Adele Grenz are the first graduates of the Master's degree programme in Health Services Research, which started in 2021 with six students. They recently successfully completed their studies and were therefore slightly faster than their fellow students, who are also on the home straight.

Both graduates will remain at the university as research assistants. While Wandscher has been conducting research in the Department of Health Services Research in the Division of Outpatient Care and Pharmacoepidemiology since February, Grenz is working in the Department of Prevention and Rehabilitation.

Two years ago, the University of Oldenburg was only the sixth German university to offer a degree programme in health services research. This still young scientific discipline is an interdisciplinary field of research within health research and focusses on everyday health care, the needs of patients and the framework conditions for good health care.

The diversity of this field is also demonstrated by the different specialisations of the first two graduates in their studies. Kathrin Wandscher, for example, focused in particular on digitalisation in healthcare, while Adele Grenz delved deeper into the topics of quality and risk management in the healthcare sector.

Another important pillar of the degree programme is learning about and applying the wide range of scientific methods used in the field of healthcare research.

Both graduates had already started their studies with the aim of working in science afterwards. They gained their first insights into this activity during their studies when they were involved in various studies and took part in scientific conferences such as the German Congress for Health Services Research.