Joining to promote young talents: an experience report from the first German Summer School for Obstetrics and Gynaecology for medical students

Abstract

The Commission for the Promotion of Young Talents of the German Society for Gynaecology and Obstetrics e.V. was founded in 2017, aiming to inspire medical students for a career in obstetrics and gynaecology by developing a concept for the first German Summer School in this field. Here, medical students shall be introduced to this multifaceted specialty and have their interest in it kindled. This article reports about the experiences of the first gynaecological summer school which was held at the University Hospital Heidelberg for 2days in August 2018. The programme included keynote presentations, discussion roundtables and skills-lab training. To assess students' related satisfaction, and to improve future projects, an evaluation survey with seven items and two open-comment questions was given to each participant after the event. Mostly female students [n (♀) = 37, 93%; n (♂) = 3, 7%] from 15 different medical universities from all over Germany participated. Available places were booked within 1 week. Participants were in their clinical part of their studies between the 5th and 16th semester. The average rating of the event was excellent with 1.1 points (1 = best-5 = worst), while the selection of topics scored lowest marks with an average rating of 1.7 points. Due to the great success, the high demand and the student's positive evaluation, annual summer schools in obstetrics and gynaecology are planned. Because most of the participating students have shown a high interest and have appropriate education in the domain, the information content of keynote presentations could be increased above basic level in future projects.