Dean’s Office of
Medical Faculty of Heidelberg
Excellent education and high-quality research were the cornerstones of the Medical Faculty at Heidelberg University in 2021. The Dean's Office summarizes the most important findings of the year 2021.
Prof. Dr.
Hans-Georg Kräusslich
Dean
The faculty was able to achieve great successes last year. I am pleased that we were able to conclude numerous professorships, recruit excellent physicians and researchers, and advertise new university chairs. However, we also pay special attention to the students. We have a great deal of respect for the way they have made good use of their time and mastered it despite the restrictions caused by the Corona pandemic.
Heidelberg is one of the top medical centers in Germany, and this is thanks to excellent teaching, patient care and research. The Heidelberg Mannheim Health Life Science Alliance offers a special opportunity along this path. Through joint science projects, platforms, programs, and recruitment, we will bring innovative approaches into clinical application even faster together with our partners. I am delighted about this important step to make the region even stronger.
Prof. Dr. Dr. Jürgen Debus
Vice-Dean for Structure
and Development
(until October 2022; since November 2022 Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Wick)
The goal of the Medical Faculty is to maintain and further develop structures that support outstanding internationally recognized research in the field of fundamental and patient care. Special focus is placed on translational research "from bench to bedside and back" and clinical trials. The rapidly advancing digitalization of clinical and scientific processes continue to contribute to a strong profile of the Medical Faculty together with the Heidelberg University Hospital. A strong focus is in the area of education and training and qualification of the various individuals for these future tasks with the indirect or direct goal of excellence in patient care.
Prof. Dr. Jan Siemens
Vice-Dean for Research
Only high quality in research and teaching can contribute to strengthening university medicine in Germany. With this goal in mind, we are focusing on excellence in Heidelberg's key areas of infectious diseases, cardiovascular research, neurosciences, oncology, and transplantation and individualized immunotherapy. In addition, there are other strong research fields such as artificial intelligence and medical informatics that are playing an increasingly relevant role. The driving force behind all these fields on our medical campus is talented scientists. It is important to support them and offer them the best conditions for their careers. With this in mind, the expansion of postgraduate funding into Clinician-, Medical- and Medical-Data Scientists will be implemented before the end of 2022.
Prof. Dr. Sabine Herpertz
Dean of Studies
The challenges of the medical profession are changing rapidly. Training must also follow these changes in order to prepare future physicians for the medical profession in the best possible way and to ensure optimal care. The training programs Curricula Heicumed and Heicudent are therefore continuously developed and adapted. Our current focus areas include projects to motivate and qualify students to work as family physicians in rural areas and adapting the dental curriculum to the new licensing regulations. And last but not least, we need to promote science through our own science curriculum and increasingly integrate digitization into the teaching content.
In one of the biggest health crises of recent decades, we had to constantly adapt processes in patient care, research and teaching to the demands of the pandemic. In the second year of the Corona crisis, our employees again performed impressively. A big thank therefore goes first and foremost to all employees for their flexibility, willingness to learn and performance. I would also like to thank the generous supporters of the region, who have always stood by us in all our central projects.
Our employees, supporters and partners are our foundation. A foundation that will support the sustainable development strategies for our campus in the coming years ─ for the benefit of all patients. These concepts include, among other things, construction measures within the ring structure of our clinics for a medicine of short distances and, in addition, changes that will drive digitization in all areas of our group. In the tradition of the hospital and the faculty lies the close connection between care, teaching and research. In the next few years, we will make a leap forward in development here and, in particular, strengthen the translational research and innovative power of our site.
2021 also placed human and economic challenges on our group. Our employees combined all their efforts to ensure the continuity of care for patients with and without COVID-19. Despite this intense test, we succeeded in closing the past year with a solid financial position. We are grateful that the state of Baden-Württemberg provided the necessary support for this with the Corona umbrella. After all, sufficient funding for university medicine is essential in order to retain, promote and recruit specialists and to implement urgently needed investments.
However, the success of a university hospital cannot be measured in figures alone. The working conditions, from the corporate climate to the equipment of a clinic, are also decisive. Therefore, a large part of our efforts is to further improve these conditions. In 2021, we began, among other things, to modernize and fundamentally revise the management structures and processes at the UKHD.