The practical year (PJ) in Germany as the last phase of medical studies is clearly anchored in the studies, both structurally and in terms of content. The aim is to learn a variety of practical activities on patient care and ward management through an active insight into the reality of care. In this respect, "active teaching" is often neglected; instead the time of PJ students is often used for repetitive activities that are done by "nobody else" to fill gaps in patient care. Students thus often feel like part of the care system without being appropriately remunerated or accompanied in their learning.

In contrast to this, students emphasize the necessity of independent patient care and the active assumption of responsibility as the most instructive experiences in the PJ, which is also supported by medical education research. They wish to be part of patient care and draw the greatest lessons from good feedback and error analysis. The best example of this is the interprofessional training station, in which students explicitly care for patients independently under constant learning support with a high degree of personal responsibility together with the trainees of nursing.

How does this discrepancy between the PJ as part of the training and the reality as part of care come about? If better learning is achieved by way of participation in the care, why is the PJ part of the study? What could German PJ learn from other countries' experiences?

Further developed, could a model of converting a "normal ward" into a complete teaching ward be an alternative? In this case, a large number of PJ students would take over the main responsibility for patient care, and would be comprehensively supervised by experienced doctors who are available full-time as learning companions? The ward would presumably require only a few more staff, would continue to be maintained as a hospital ward and would offer a comprehensive learning experience for all PJ students.

Together with the participants, a discussion of principles will be conducted and proposals  will subsequently be created for better integration of PJ students in training and care.

The whole world is currently talking about digitalization, especially in the health sector. Germany’s health minister Jens Spahn announced that "Germany should become number one in digitalization". Artificial intelligence and apps are to assist in diagnosis and expand therapy options. Electronic patient files should offer more clarity. Telemedicine is to improve rural medical care.

So far, so futuristic. But if you look at where all these competences for our future doctors are supposed to come from, you will look in vain. Up until now there are no structures for teaching digital skills, nor is there a national strategy for digitally skilled doctors of the future in sight. Although there are individual local efforts to teach digitalization, it is time to bundle these efforts and finally to develop a concept for the digital teaching of the future.

In our workshop we want to give you a short overview in the field of digital skills in order to develop concrete teaching concepts for them. In doing so we will not only focus on the content (e.g. telemedicine, AI & Big Data, M-Health), but also discuss and further develop the way such content is to be taught. It is desirable that students are involved in digital care at an early stage in order to learn the necessary skills in practice. This offers potential for teachers and students to discuss ethical aspects together.

The aim of the workshop is to enable the participants to further develop these teaching concepts independently or in a network with other participants and, depending on their role, to advocate for them or implement them in their home faculties. The workshop concept itself as an interdisciplinary introduction to the topic for students at the beginning of the clinical semesters will also be discussed with regard to its feasibility.

Let us shape the education of tomorrow together!

Medical expertise is built on knowledge, skills and attitudes. This is true for medical competencies, but also for intra- and interpersonal competencies. They are no static givens, but have to be developed dynamically and intersubjectively through intrapersonal and interpersonal reflection, exchange and feedback, but also through cultural factors.

Reflective practice in groups can create space to learn opening up for reflection, change and feedback and to improve intra- and interpersonal cometencies. In this workshop participants will learn concepts and research findings on reflective practice, but also experience a reflection session and be able to discuss ways to implement personal professional reflection in their working or study environment.

We will:

1. Provide theoretical background
2. Give opportunity for self-experience
3. Discuss different ways for implementation

References:

• Lombardo L, Ehlers J, Lutz G. Is your mind set? – How are intra- and interpersonal competences dealt with in medical education? BMC Med Educ. 2019;19(1):317.
• Lutz G, Pankoke N, Goldblatt H; Hofmann M; Zupanic M. Enhancing medical students' reflectivity in mentoring groups for professional development - a qualitative analysis. BMC Med Educ. 2017;17(1):122.
• Lutz G, Roling G, Berger B, Edelhäuser F, Scheffer C. Reflective practice and its role in facilitating creative responses to dilemmas within clinical communication - a qualitative analysis. BMC Med Educ. 2016 Nov 24;16(1):3011
• Lutz G, Scheffer C, Edelhaeuser F, Tauschel D, Neumann M. A reflective practice intervention for professional development, reduced stress and improved patient care--a qualitative developmental evaluation. Patient Educ Couns. 2013 Sep;92(3):337-45.
• Neumann M, Edelhäuser F, Kreps GL, Scheffer C, Lutz G, Tauschel D, Visser A (2010). Can patient-provider interaction increase the effectiveness of medical treatment or even substitute it? ─ An exploration on why and how to study the specific effect of the provider. Patient Educ Couns, 80; p.307-314.

Was muss ein Hospital leisten, damit die Behandlung der Patient*innen gut gelingt?

Von fehlenden Geldern, Patient*innenbeschwerden, Pflegemangel und Ärzt*innenburnout ist dauernd die Rede. Sich damit im Medizinstudium zu beschäftigen klingt nicht wirklich interessant, aber nützlich ist es ja doch, auch in diese Aspekte des späteren Berufsfeldes einzutauchen.

Das Spiel Gute Besserung, das von Christoph Cantzler und Sigrid Harendza entwickelt wurde, bildet das System Krankenhaus ab und macht das Zusammenwirken von Beschäftigten und Patient*innen in komprimierter Form und auf unterhaltsame Weise erlebbar.

In diesem Workshop werden wir gemeinsam – analog mit digitaler Übertragung – spielen und die Interaktionen und Stellgrößen im Krankenhausbetrieb erleben, die zusammen eine gute Patient*innenversorgung gewährleisten. In Teams erproben wir unsere Führungskompetenz. Die Patient*innen sollen mit der Behandlung zufrieden sein (Patient*innenorientierung), es müssen Gelder erwirtschaftet werden (Einnahmen des Hospitals) und die Arbeitskraft von Pflegekräften und Ärzt*innen sollte sorgsam eingesetzt werden.

Wenn das Zusammenspiel funktioniert, heißt es für alle: Gute Besserung!

Können Studierende PatientInnen zu deren Gesundheit beraten?

Im Rahmen eines studentischen Gesundheitsgespräches beraten Studierende PatientInnen zu deren Gesundheit und unterstützen sie damit, selbstwirksam und aktiv für die eigene Gesundheit zu werden.

Ein Großteil der Erkrankungen, wegen derer bei uns eine ärztliche Konsultation erfolgt, sind Erkrankungen deren Cofaktoren im Lebensstil liegen. Ein zunehmend größer werdender Anteil der PatientInnen sucht nach Unterstützung in Lebensstilfragen.

In vertrauensvollen Einzelgespräch setzten sich Studierende mit den Bedürfnissen und Wünschen der PatientInnen auseinander und unterstützen sie auf ihrem individuellen Weg in einen gesünderen Lebensstil.

Die Studierenden erleben sich im Gesundheitsgespräch selbstwirksam und eigenständig. Sie haben eine eigene, wichtige Rolle und sind Teil des Gesundheitssystems. Neben dem Blick auf die Pathologie und Therapie von Erkrankungen, erweitern sie ihren Blick auf die Förderung von Gesundheit.

In diesem Workshop stelle ich Ihnen dieses Projekt vor. Sie bekommen detaillierte Einblicke und Anregungen, so dass Sie in die Lage versetzt werden, dieses Konzept in Ihre eigene Ausbildung zu übernehmen.

Angelika Homberg

Learning by listening on patient’s history – an interprofessional teaching approach

People with chronic diseases, such as oncological patients, have to deal with many different questions in the course of their illness. Often these questions are more about coping with everyday life, family and one's own role than about medical aspects 1. In order to make students aware to the complexity of the patient´s needs, an interprofessional learning and examination format has been developed at the Heidelberg Medical Faculty in which patients are involved. Students early socialization with other health professionals can build bridges and improve understanding of each other's roles and contributions to patient care2.

Within an interprofessional elective module on Complementary and Integrative Medicine (InterKIM)3, tandems of two students are asked to contact an oncology patient. Each tandem is made up of students from different study programs, e.g. a medical student and a nursing student. Each tandem develops a guideline for a narrative patient interview lasting about one hour. During the subsequent conversation, the patient should be given plenty of space to tell his or her own medical history and experiences with the disease. The interview is recorded. Students then present the central points from different perspectives and reflect on the care process and their own professional role in a written paper, which is graded as proof of achievement.

The format is well accepted and implemented by the students. The students support each other and experience the different profession-specific perspectives of the tandem partners as enriching for the conversation with the patient. The written reflections of the students show that they perceive the resources that the patient himself/herself brings to the overcoming of the illness, how they draw strength and hope from small encounters, for example, and how important the social environment is. The students also perceive obstacles in the care process and get aware of their own responsibilities in the health team. The patients themselves show a great willingness to get personally involved in the interview and are often grateful to be heard.

In the workshop it will be presented how this format is implemented in the module and what concrete experiences the students have made. The advantages and disadvantages are discussed as well as the possibilities of modification and implementation at other faculties. There will also be a critical discussion of whether the written work can be assessed as an examination paper.

New learning and examination formats can help students to find their place in the interprofessional care team and to deal more confidently with patients with chronic diseases and their complex needs.

How to study HEALTH healthy? Possible ways to support students learning during Covid 19 pandemic

Learning is an essential, life-long developable competence. Training in “learning how to learn” seems to become an important role within universities. Especially in times of the radical shift to an individual centered online study during the Covid 19 pandemic. Nowadays students’ health is regarded as a basic element of the learning capacity should be strengthened, and resilience should be promoted to ensure long-term successful learning (Dekker et al., 2020 & Tempski et al., 2015).  A “Learning how to Learn” seminar was developed and evaluated before the pandemic.  It addresses physiological, psychological and spiritual fields that are known to relevantly contribute to healthy learning improvement as well as learning techniques (Thye & Tauschel et al, 2016). Especially the learning environment (Hattie, 2016) is taken into account. Due to the new circumstances of the study with its new demands, the seminar was adapted and centered around some key factors: self-regulation, interconnected learning, self-care and digital detoxing.

This workshop wants to explore and highlight factors of multi-dimensional, healthy learning, like self-care for own health motivation, success and happiness as a basis for learning. The main focus is to show which abilities need support during pandemic semester and how this can be enabled.  After taking part in our workshop, participants will be able to reflect on their faculties learning-supportive environment during pandemic times,take home some essential ideas on how to adapt to the new demands and hopefully feel inspired to start building their own learning to learn seminar. 

During the workshop, we will combine scientific facts from a decade of research on academic learning with very recent insight and feedback given by students of our faculty of health. We will provide a workshop using different forms of didactical approaches given the possibilities of an online workshop. There will be theoretical input as well as the possibility to share the practical experiences of the participants and working together. In the end, there will be some learning how to learn for everyone.

Interactive workshop, 120 minutes, research results and practical insight from the students perspective, fostering motivation, supporting a better learning-world.

MIrja Leibnitz

Sebastian Albers

Philipp Linde

Medical students in physician-patient communication trainings about sexuality – Let’s talk about Sex

alking about sexuality in doctor-patient communication not only enables the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases and the diagnosis of sexual problems, but can also improve physical and mental health. However, there are few opportunities for medical students to train their ability to talk about sexuality with empathy and knowledge and with the involvement of other "life worlds", e.g. LGTBIQ* patients (1), but medical students are very interested in the topic (2) and the majority of patients want to talk about sexuality with their doctor. (3) The results of a project funded by the European Commission show that LGTBIQ* patients in Europe suffer from poor communication with health professionals and insufficient medical treatment and advice.

The Deutsche Aidshilfe, a patient-centred self-help organisation, developed the programme "Let's talk about Sex" for medical students in cooperation with the Charité Berlin and the Goethe University Frankfurt. 3-7-hour workshops a) train students, tutors and lecturers in doctor-patient communication on aspects of sexuality and sexual practices; b) sensitise students to understand the living environments of people with HIV and LGTBIQ* persons in order to counteract stigmatisation and discrimination in the public health system; and c) promote cooperation between doctors, local HIV/AIDS service organisations and counselling centres.

In the session, which will be held by two experienced trainers - former medical students and tutors themselves - and be moderated by the programme manager, we will       

• present the content of the programme and the different formats, including a tutorial training course, which will be applied at 11 German universities in 2020,
• leave room for trying out some of the interactive exercises/role-plays that form the core of the programme and which aim at self-reflection, identifying weaknesses in communication techniques and offering learning experiences to improve them,
• discuss the following questions: What are the challenges and opportunities for medical universities and for the students themselves who work as trainers communication on sexuality? How can LGTBIQ*-inclusive communication be incorporated into medical curricula? Are there examples of best practice and what can we learn from them?

The participants have a better understanding of the importance of integrating sexual anamnesis and speaking about sexuality into doctor-patient communication in medical curricula, have initial ideas on how to do this and have initiated a discussion on how medical students can be trained as tutors.

Although talking about sexuality is an essential part of doctor-patient communication, the challenges of integrating it into the compulsory courses for medical students are many. Training students as tutors and trainers in this topic could be an excellent way to expand the range of courses offered.

Global Health Education: Meeting emerging demands of medical students

Through the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic it became once more apparent that the health of a person is not only dependent on individual clinical care, but strongly affected by systemic and global factors. However, education on those systemic and global factors in terms of global health education is still largely missing in the medical curriculum, leaving future health professionals unprepared for the challenges they will face. In this workshop, we will showcase past and on-going examples of student engagement from various medical faculties in Germany with the aim to illustrate how students can become advocates of global health education and enhance institutional change.

At different medical faculties in Germany, students have come up with diverse solutions to meet the need of global health education. These solutions, including student-led elective courses, published compendiums, online newsletters and online lecture series, will serve as case studies on how to integrate and improve global health education through student initiatives.

In response to the lack of education, students at the medical faculties at Leipzig University and Hanover Medical School developed elective courses on global health for undergraduate medical students. The processes of these developments were documented in a published compendium “How To Wahlfach” to assist other student initiatives to establish global health education projects in their medical faculty. In addition to student electives, an alternative way of peer-to-peer-education found to be effective in educating students about global health topics are newsletters, workshops and social media campaigns.

The ongoing student commitment for global health is remarkable. However, there is a lack of institutionalised support and recognition of the importance of global health education in Germany. In this workshop we would like to present our case studies and then discuss with participants how they can become an important voice in global health education in their role as students as well as teachers. Furthermore, we would like to use the workshop as an opportunity for strengthening the network of students working on institutionalizing global health education in the medical curriculum. Lastly, we would like to develop ideas on how to initiate more profound changes in attitudes of teaching staff and integration of global health education in medical curricula nationwide.

Student voices and voluntary commitment can be important drivers for the integration of global health education in the medical curriculum. Nevertheless, the inclusion of global health education must go further: it should become an integral part of the core curriculum at all medical faculties in Germany.

Climate Change and Health Workshop

“The climate crisis is one of the greatest threats to the health of humanity today” states Richard Horton, the editor-in-chief of ‘The Lancet’.1)

We are now facing the health impacts of climate change and can already witness rising numbers of heat-related deaths, the spreading of vector-borne tropical diseases in non-tropical areas and global food insecurity resulting in undernutrition plus many more effects2). Medical systems and staff like administration, doctors and nurses need to be aware of and trained in dealing with the health effects of climate change, such as extreme weather events or heat waves.

The workshop, hosted by members of the German initiative ‘Health For Future’, will include a presentation of scientific evidence for the health consequences of the climate crisis. Starting with a ‘Mentimeter’ quiz and splitting participants into smaller groups for “Break-Out-Sessions” the online workshop will maintain an interactive format. Afterwards the hosts will present different projects of ‘Health For Future’ like an educational podcast, public lectures, or the sustainable hospital and practice workgroup.

The aim of this workshop will be to raise awareness on the various impacts of climate change on human health, to show possible courses of action and to motivate students to advocate for climate protection at their universities and in their working environment.

The topic of health and climate change is currently still largely underrepresented in the curriculum at medical school. This includes lacking hands-on-information for practitioners in everyday worklife as well as missing administrative measures in hospitals or other medical institutions. The workshop raises the question of how we as members of the medical profession can be part of tackling this problem in our own field of action and appeals to the responsibility of protecting human health.

Climate change is affecting human health. In order to protect human health, we must take action against climate change. Introducing the topic of climate change related health issues to the educational curriculum of medical school could be a promising way to spread more awareness to the topic in healthcare.

Survey on the curricular integration of sex and gender aspects into health professions education in Germany

Authors: Sabine Ludwig1,2, Susanne Dettmer1, Gabriele Kaczmarczyk3, Raphael Kohl1, Ute Seeland1,4

1. Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin
2. University of Applied Health Sciences Bochum [Hochschule für Gesundheit Bochum]
3. German Medical Women’s Association [Deutscher Ärztinnenbund]
4. German Society for Sex and Gender Specific Medicine [Deutsche Gesellschaft für  Geschlechtsspezifische Medizin e.V.]

In Germany and worldwide there are efforts to integrate sex and gender aspects into health professions’ curricula. In order to guarantee an adequate quality of health care knowledge and competencies on sex and gender differences in the prevention, development, diagnosis, therapy and research of diseases and medical disorders are important. Here the aim was to analyse how medical faculties and the head of schools of nursing and physiotherapy evaluate the relevance of gender competencies for their work, the extent of curricular integration and the structures responsible for the integration.

An online questionnaire was developed and sent to all 41 deans of medical schools in January 2020. Out of 537 nursing schools a randomized sample of 197 (36,7%) and out of 286 schools for physiotherapy a randomized sample of 97 (33,9%) received the questionnaire. It was addressed to the heads of schools excluding higher education institutions for the two professions. The survey was closed end of March 2020. The questionnaire included questions on the relevance of sex and gender aspects for their professional work, the extent of curricular integration and the structures responsible for the integration.

The response rate was 75,6% (n=31) for the medical schools, 52,5% (n=94) for the schools of nursing and 54,6% (n=53) for the schools of physiotherapy. The deans of medical schools and the head of schools for nursing and physiotherapy considered the integration of sex and gender aspects as relevant (medical faculties: 93%; nursing: 98% physiotherapy: 92%). A systematic longitudinal integration in all teaching formats including the integration into the assessment could only be achieved by 3,7% of medical schools, 2,4% of schools of nursing and 6,4% of schools of physiotherapy. However, 22,2% of medical schools, 30,0% of schools of nursing and 15% of schools of physiotherapy integrated sex and gender aspects  in several courses. Responsible for the integration are mainly the faculty teachers for all three professions.

Although sex and gender aspects are considered to be relevant for their future professional work, they are not yet systematically integrated into the curricula of the three health professions. Limitations of the survey are that the deans of faculty and the head of schools might not have been aware of the sex and gender aspects that are taught by their teachers. Furthermore, the meaning of “sex” and “gender” might not have been clear for all the respondants.

For a systematic integration, sex and gender aspects need to be integrated as mandatory teaching and learning content into the national regulations for those professions. Furthermore, faculty teachers need to be trained and taught gender competencies. For this, online courses should be specifically developed for the three professions and support provided to the schools and medical faculties for developing gender-sensitive curricula.

1. Aktueller Stand der Integration von Aspekten der Geschlechtersensibilität und des Geschlechterwissens in Rahmenlehr- und Ausbildungsrahmenpläne, Ausbildungskonzepte, -curricula und Lernzielkataloge für Beschäftigte im Gesundheitswesen. Gutachten für das Bundesministerium für Gesundheit. Autorinnen (alphabetische Reihenfolge, gleichberechtigte Autor*innenschaften): DETTMER S, KACZMARCYK G, LUDWIG S, SEELAND U,  im Druck.
2. LUDWIG S, DETTMER S, WURL W, SEELAND U, MAAZ A, PETERS H (2020). Evaluation of curricular relevance and actual integration of sex/gender and cultural competencies by final year medical students: effects in student diversity subgroups and by curriculum. GMS J Med Educ; 37(2):Doc19 (3) doi: 10.3205/zma001312

3.  

4.  LUDWIG S, DETTMER S, PETERS H, KACZMARCZYK G (2016). Geschlechtsspezifische Medizin in der Lehre – noch in den Kinderschuhen. Dtsch Ärztebl;113(51):A2364-2366.

Reinstating patient care as the object of prescribing education: learning by contributing to care.

Hannah Gillespie1, Eleanor McCrystall1, Helen Reid1, Richard Conn1, Neil Kennedy1, Tim Dornan 1,2

1 Centre for Medical Education, Queen’s University Belfast, UK

2 Department of Education Development and Research, Maastricht University, NL

Prescribing (writing medication orders) is one of residents’ commonest tasks. Superficially, all they have to do is complete a form. Below this apparent simplicity, though, lies the complex task of framing patients’ needs and navigating relationships with them and other clinicians. We followed an approach pioneered in Edinburgh and Keele Medical Schools, where students write medication orders for real patients, in context, using coloured labels or ink to identify these as ‘pre‐prescriptions’, which must not be enacted until countersigned by a qualified prescriber. 1,2 We reasoned that involving students directly in real prescribing rather than writing mock prescriptions or observing others prescribing would mediate students’ involvement in practice and help them transition into a doctor’s identity.

We advocated for the intervention, explained its rationale and proposed procedures, and purposively selected four pilot sites whose leaders showed active interest.  The conceptual orientation was towards activity theory (AT). 3 We kept a log of the project and an audit trail of correspondence, meeting notes, and other information sources. We evaluated uptake of the intervention and used the regional incident reporting system to monitor harm. Six months later, a medical student carried telephone interviews with junior residents who had participated in the experiment as students, administrators, lecturers, nurses, and doctors. We analysed these using AT as an interpretive framework.

Eighty students placed in medical and surgical wards in four hospitals participated. They wrote from a few prescriptions to hundreds of them. The project was successful in that: it allowed some students to become experienced prescribers before qualification; the SOP was found acceptable by different professional groups in different hospitals; no patient harm was reported. The object of prescribing education – capability to care for patients safely - evolved by means of knot-working, expansive learning, and lessening of tensions.

The simple and cheap intervention of giving students pens with purple ink and bringing practitioners together to agree operating policies that re-established patient care as the object of clinical education relieved tensions and expanded this object to offer new educational possibilities. Transcribing brought senior medical students’ learning closer to patients and prototyped a viable alternative to traditional apprenticeship education which is made necessary by today’s multi-professional, highly technical, and fast-changing type of clinical care. This research shows how a carefully conceptualised but simple and cheap intervention can cause major, potentially beneficial change in a complex social system.

1) KinstonR, McCarvilleN, HassellA. 2019. The role of purple pens in learning to prescribe. Clinical Teacher. 16:1–6.

2) EngeströmY. 2018. Expertise in transition. Expansive learning in medical work. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Medical Student Alliance for Global Education: Sending a message for student engagement

1. Evangelos Papageorgiou, York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (United Kingdom), vagpapageorge@gmail.com (Presenting and corresponding author)
2. Catarina Pais Rodrigues, University of Coimbra (Portugal), cpaisrodrigues@gmail.com
3. Aliye Runyan, Westchester Medical Center, NY (USA)  Aliye.runyan@scholarrx.com
4. Tao Le, University of Louisville (USA), tao.le@scholarrx.com

ScholarRx (www.scholarrx.com) is a US-based organization that has developed the concept of the Rx Bricks, an innovative digital learning system featuring interconnectable, multimedia learning “bricks” that can be used by medical schools to create their own curriculum. The bricks are usually developed by professionals, but ScholarRx has recognized the ever - growing expertise of students to lead curricular change [1]. The process follows the principles of Adam Fletcher’s ladder of student involvement [2]. According to this model, one of the highest steps is the one of student-driven activities where faculty members collaborate as expert advisors to support students’ education initiatives.

ScholarRx and seven medical student organizations partnered to create the Medical Student Alliance for Global Education (MeSAGE) (Table 1), representing more than 1.3 million students worldwide. MeSAGE conducted a shared, global needs assessment of their members as part of a standardized curricular development framework. MeSAGE recruited student authors from the participating student organizations and provided training in digital curriculum and brick development to help build up their skills [3].

Based on the needs assessment, the following topic areas were prioritized for curricular development: sexual and reproductive health and rights, diversity, equity , and inclusion in healthcare, digital health, and basics of medical education (“students as educators”). Bricks covering sexual and reproductive health and rights were co-created by students acting as authors and faculty advisors as reviewers. These open access bricks are expected to be publically available in late 2020. Learning objectives are currently being developed for the other topic areas.

Traditional medical education often encourages working in silos. In order to change this, communities of collaboration should be created. Student - faculty partnerships can empower students to become change agents and help curricular co-creation [1].  The students’ involvement within the MeSAGE organization will help them learn more about the process of developing educational materials and develop their skills to become future educators.

Student engagement in student-faculty collaborations such as MeSAGE is critical in developing curricular resources that will address the needs of future physicians.

[1]: Burk-Rafel J, Harris KB, Heath J, Milliron A, Savage DJ, Skochelak SE. Students as catalysts for curricular innovation: A change management framework. Medical Teacher. 2020 May 3;42(5):572–7.

[2]: Adam Fletcher.Meaningful Student Involvement, Guide to Students as Partners in School Change, 2nd edition

[3]: Sandars J, Correia R, Dankbaar M, de Jong P, Goh PS, Hege I, et al. Twelve tips for rapidly migrating to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. MedEdPublish. 2020 [cited 2020 Oct 4];9(1).

Global Health Communication: A student-led Newsletter within the COVID-19 infodemic

Lilyana Boycheva, Sophie Gepp 1, Laura Jung 2, Annika Kreitlow 3, Marc Margulan, Birthe Seifert, Martina Steinmaurer 4

1 Sophie Gepp, Charité - University Medicine Berlin,

2 Laura Jung, Leipzig University, l

3 Annika Kreitlow, Hanover Medical School,

4 Martina Steinmaurer, LMU Munich

In March 2020, as the global COVID-19 pandemic was emerging, an extremely high volume of news, ranging from relevant expert information to simple fake news, was being shared all over the globe. This phenomenon even led the WHO to come up with the term “infodemic” (1), meaning the overload of information concerning the global pandemic. A group of medical students from Germany started the weekly newsletter “COVID-19 Backgrounds on the Pandemic”. The main goal of the initiative was to filter relevant information and to help interested students cope with the high volume of news related to the pandemic. 

A team of eight medical students from different German faculties started the newsletter in a participatory process. The selection of topics and sources was discussed in weekly editorial meetings to ensure their quality and their relevance. 

Each edition contained between five to eight articles under the following six categories: epidemiology, virology, health systems & politics, economy & social issues, mental health, fake news & communication. The articles aimed to give a brief overview of roughly 200-300 words on a specific topic with further resources and background information being provided within each article. 

The newsletter was promoted through various public and global health related mailing lists, as well as local faculty mailing lists and social media. 

Starting from March 2020 up until August 2020, 15 newsletter editions with a total of 112 articles have been published so far. A maximum of 698 readers have subscribed to the newsletter, with the main audience being German-speaking medical students. To increase sustainability of the articles, the website covid.bvmd.de was created, where all previous newsletter editions can be found and reread. 

In addition to the main articles by the editorial team, a spot for weekly guest-articles was added, where other student organizations were given the opportunity to introduce themselves and their work regarding COVID-19. 

In the age of digital news, social media and push-notifications, many people struggle to filter relevant from irrelevant information. To cope with this information overload, digital newsletters can be a valuable source of information and can be seen as an especially adaptable medium of communication and teaching. During the height of the pandemic the traditional education tools weren’t able to react to the upcoming challenge and the demand of trustworthy information sources. 

Further, student-run newsletters are a tool of peer-to-peer education, which has scientifically been shown to be a valuable form of teaching. Its advantages can be attributed to the cognitive and social congruence of peers. (2)

Emerging global health challenges are asking for new and quick ways of health communication

Newsletters are a new and effective way of filtering and disseminating information. Students are an important driver of innovating communication and teaching methods 

1. WHO, Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Situation Report 86 www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200415-sitrep-86-covid-19.pdf
2. Cate OT, Durning S. Dimensions and Psychology of peer teaching in medical education. Med Teach. 2007;29(6):546-552.