MBBS in University of Duisburg Essen Faculty of Medicine

The University of Duisburg and the University of Essen joined together to form the University of Duisburg-Essen in 2003. The university is one of the newest big public ones in Germany. On the other hand, its Faculty of Medicine has been around longer and is more well-known. Before the merger, there were already traditions in medical school in Essen that led to this. The Universitätsklinikum Essen, the university hospital, is very close to the school. In this school, most of the teaching and clinical training takes place. It is also one of the biggest academic medical schools in North Rhine-Westphalia, which has the most people in Germany.

It's very important that you know this before you go any further: the Medizinische Fakultät only offers its medical degree in German. In Germany, this is also true at Duisburg-Essen and at almost all other public medical schools. Like France's, Germany's medical school system is based on a national structure that mostly gives German students the chance to learn. Nationality is used to decide who gets in, and German is the main language of instruction. Germany doesn't have as many English-language medical degrees as some of the other European countries we've talked about in this series. This means that foreign applicants who don't speak German very well will have a real problem that has nothing to do with how smart they are.

The Staatsexamen in Medizin, which is German for "medical degree," is set up in a way that is very different from how Bachelor's and Master's degrees are set up in most other fields. Six years and three months are spent in school, with about two years spent in the basic phase and three years spent in the clinical phase. The last year is called the Praktisches Jahr, and it is spent working in hospitals before graduation. They don't just take one final exam; they take three separate state exams at different points in their degree. Every one of them is a big national challenge in its own way, and they all test both your clinical and general knowledge.

In order to get into German medical schools, such as Duisburg-Essen, the Stiftung für Hochschulzulassung (hochschulstart.de) runs a very organized national system. There are a lot of different factors that go into this method. Some of them are the applicant's Abitur grade point average, how long they have been waiting, and more and more, things like ability test scores and interviews at different universities. There are a lot more qualified people applying to medicine schools in Germany every year than there are seats available. You don't have to be from the United States to have a hard time getting into college right now.

That being said, the real world is really tough for international applicants in particular. People from outside the EU generally have to show that they can speak and write German at a high level, usually DSH-2 or TestDaF level 4 or higher, before they can even be considered for admission. Also, academic qualifications from outside of Germany need to be checked to see if they are the same. Depending on the applicant's home country, this could mean taking extra classes or a Studienkolleg, which is a foundation year designed to get international students up to the level of education and language expected of a German Abitur graduate.

Clinical training for the Faculty of Medicine takes place at Universitätsklinikum Essen and the teaching hospitals that are connected to it all over the Ruhr region, which is one of Germany's most densely populated and industrially important areas. This gives students the chance to work with a huge number of patients who have a wide range of health problems. This shows how big and varied the health care system is in a big city or factory. Oncology, cardiovascular medicine, immunology, and transplant medicine are some of the other fields that the faculty studies. This is possible because the university hospital is a major referral point for the area.

There are low or no fees to get a medical degree at public universities in Germany, like Duisburg-Essen. There is a real difference between this medical school and many of the private or English-language ones we've talked about so far. North Rhine-Westphalia is one of the German states that does not charge tuition fees at public universities for German or foreign students. There is, however, a small semester contribution fee that pays for a pass to use public transportation and management costs. By international standards, this means that it doesn't cost much to study here. This isn't really the case for most international students, though, because they have to pay a lot to live in Germany and learn the language before they can even apply.

No matter where they went to school, all doctors in Germany have to go through the Facharztausbildung after passing the Staatsexamen. This is a time when they specialize under supervision after graduation before they can work on their own in a certain field. The German medical degree is fully accepted throughout the European Union and the European Economic Area. This is because it meets EU standards for medical education. This means that graduates can go anywhere in Europe to get more training or work as a doctor.

Before making this decision, the most important thing for Indian students is to think about the language barrier. Before a foreign medical degree can be used to take the FMGE or NExT test that is needed to work as a doctor in India, the National Medical Commission of India usually wants it to be given in English or meet other exact requirements. This might not be directly met by a degree offered in German from Duisburg-Essen, and the student still needs to take the NEET test no matter what country they are going to. As an Indian person who wants to go down this path, they should check the NMC's requirements and make sure they meet them. Also, they should plan to study German full-time for at least a year or two before they apply.

The rest of the world knows Berlin and Munich better than Essen and the rest of the Ruhr area. People used to work there, but things have changed a lot in the last few decades. It is now known for bringing back its culture, and in 2010 it was named a European Capital of Culture. It also costs a lot less to live there than in Germany's southern bigger cities. It is a great chance for students who meet the academic and language standards to study medicine in one of Europe's largest economies for a low price.

To put it simply, Duisburg-Essen is a good place in Germany to study medicine. It has a lot of university hospitals, and almost everyone can go to school for free. But from the start, you need to be very good at German. It also has one of the most centralized and competitive national admissions systems in Europe, and it wasn't designed with English-speaking foreign applicants in mind. You should only do it if you already speak German very well or are determined to learn it over a long period of time. Before making this choice, they should have also given careful thought to how this would affect their license back home.