Q1 Is the medical program at Hamburg taught in English?
+No. The entire program runs in German, at every stage, with no English-taught track for the core medical degree.
The Elbe River meets the North Sea in Hamburg, which is in northern Germany. The city is Germany's second largest. People know it for its busy port, music scene, and mix of new glass buildings and old brick stores. The Medizinische Fakultät of the University of Hamburg is in this building. It works closely with one of the largest and most well-known university hospitals in Germany.
In Germany, the University of Hamburg is one of the newest big universities. It opened in 1919. Doctors have been trained in the city even longer, though, because they have been taught in hospitals for a very long time. At one of Germany's biggest universities, more than 40,000 students study a lot of different subjects. A lot of work is done between the Faculty of Medicine and UKE, which stands for University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf. Britain's Queen Mary University Hospital (UKE) is one of the biggest and most advanced in Europe.
Think about this school if you are not from Germany, but first you should know something important. The only language spoken at German medical school is German. You can't get the basic medicael degre taught in English here. For the first few weeks of school, all classes, tests, hospital rounds, and contact with patients are done in German. They should know that they can't change the fact that they don't speak and understand German well, no matter what else the school has to give.
Germany doesn't just have one set of rules for getting into medical school; there is a national set as well. Few spots are available in medicine across the whole country. Hochschulstart, which is Germany's main university admissions body and is sometimes still known by its old name, ZVS, is in charge of medicine spots. Choice takes many things into account. In this, you can find a student's Abitur score, which is the German grade for graduating from high school, as well as how well they did on the TMS (a national medical ability test), and the outcomes of their individual interviews with colleges. Medical spots are very hard to get in Germany as a whole. Every year, a lot of people want to go to Hamburg because it is big and has a great hospital partner.
The Approbationsordnung fĂźr Ărzte, which is Germany's law on doctor training, spells out the normal way for medical students to be taught. This is what the school does. There are different steps that happen over the course of six years and three months. The first part, which is called the vorklinischer Abschnitt, lasts for about two years. Being in this program helps them learn about anatomy, physiology, biology, and psychology. As part of their regular course work, they also get to work with patients right away. Students take a big national test at the end of this stage called the erster Abschnitt der ärztlichen PrĂźfung. This test covers everything they have learned so far.
The second stage, which lasts three more years, is called the klinischer Sitz. At this point, the course starts to really focus on clinical topics like surgery, internal medicine, pediatrics, psychiatry, and many more. People at UKE and its partner sites learn these through a mix of classes, seminars, and planned hospital placements. The last year is called the Praktisches Jahr (PJ), and it is spent working in a hospital full-time. The student does rotations in internal medicine, surgery, and an area of their choice during the course of the year. You have to pass the zweiter Abschnitt der ärztlichen Prßfung, which is the second big national exam, before you can work as a doctor in Germany. The word for this is "Approbation."
There is a great hospital partner here that helps with practical training. The University Hospital UKE is one of the best in Germany. Heart problems, cancer, and organ transplants are some of the things that it is known for. The school is in a big hospital that does a lot of research. They learn new ways to treat patients and deal with difficult cases that a smaller hospital in the same area could not offer.
UKE is also a major biomedical research center, and Hamburg has a lot of research power. Students who really want to do research should go on the German doctoral research track. It is usually begun in the last few years of medical school, and a lot of German medical students choose this route so that they can have a career in academia or research later on.
Hamburg's cost system is similar to the model used by all public universities in Germany. This method is one of the easier ones for students to use. When it comes to medicine, most public universities in Germany don't charge any tuition at all, or they charge a very small fee every semester to cover costs like student IDs and lunch. This is true for many students from other countries as well as German students. But for non-EU applicants, the exact rules should always be checked directly, as some German states have started to charge these students small fees lately.
Life in Hamburg is very important, especially school. Many times, the city has been named one of the best places to live in Germany. Public transportation is good, the arts and music scene is lively around the Reeperbahn and the Elbphilharmonie concert hall, and the North Sea is close by. It costs more to live here than in some smaller German cities, but less than in Munich and Frankfurt most of the time.
If you already speak German well and want to study German medicine, the Medizinische Fakultät at the University of Hamburg is a well-known and inexpensive way to get access to one of Germany's largest university hospitals and all of its resources. German medical schooling is done only in German, even in Hamburg, so students who want to learn English can't go to this school.
