German Department Research Articles

Status of cardiac surgical intensive care medicine in Germany during 2013: a report on behalf of the German Society for Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery.

This report summarizes the results of a voluntary survey designed to assess the current situation of cardiac surgical intensive care medicine in Germany in 2013. standardized questionnaire concerning detailed information about structural characteristics of cardiac surgical intensive care units (ICUs) was sent to all German departments performing cardiac surgery. Participation quota resp. response rate was 100%. Compared with previous surveys since 1998, the total number of available intensive care capacities for patients after cardiac surgery increased to 1,404 beds, whereas the proportion of cardiac surgical ICUs decreased to 59% with a simultaneous increase of interdisciplinary ICUs. The proportion of cardiac surgeons acting as director of an ICU declined to 36%. The physicians' teams were predominantly interdisciplinary (74%). More than half of the directors were board-certified intensivists (54%), with a peak of 81% in ICUs run by cardiac surgeons. Human resources development in the ICU showed divergent trends with an increase of physicians and a decrease of nurses. Half of all ICUs (50%) and two-thirds of cardiac surgical ICUs (65%) offer an accredited training program for intensive care medicine. The results of this survey corroborate that intensive care medicine represents a substantial and important part of cardiac surgery. However, efforts are necessary to keep this attitude alive for the future.

Compatibility of scientific research and specialty training in general practice. A cross-sectional study.

Objective: In many departments of General Practice (GP) in Germany, young doctors who are trainees also work as researchers. Often these trainees work part time at the university and part time as a trainee in clinical practice. However, little is known about the situation of the actors involved. The aim of the study was to investigate the perspectives of GP trainees, heads of departments and GP trainers regarding the combination of research and GP training.Methods: We conducted a web-based survey with the heads of all German departments of General Practice, GP trainees who also conduct research and their GP trainers. The questionnaires consisted of open and closed questions. The results were analyzed using descriptive statistics and qualitative methods.Results: 28 heads of GP departments and 20 GP trainees responded. The trainees were mostly very satisfied with their situation as a trainee. However, the trainees considered the combination of research and GP training as difficult. The respondents name as problems the coordination of multiple jobs and the lack of credibility given to research in General Practice. They name as solutions research-enabling training programs and uniform requirements in training regarding research.Conclusion: The combination of GP training and scientific research activity is perceived as difficult. However, well-organized and designed programs can improve the quality of the combination.

Writing for publication in linguistics: Exploring niches of multilingual publishing among German linguists

The trend towards Englishization has affected virtually all academic disciplines in various parts of the world. However, some sociocultural and disciplinary contexts are still under-researched, as for instance the supposed ‘niches’ of multilingual publishing within the humanities, especially in those countries whose national languages used to play an important role in international research communication. This paper therefore investigates the publication practices of scholars working at a German university in the field of linguistics. This discipline presents an interesting case for multilingual publishing as it is an inherently plurilingual discipline, dealing with different languages as its object of investigation. To gain an insider's view, interviews with linguists specializing in English, German, or Romance languages were conducted and analyzed qualitatively. It was found that the language use in publications is mainly affected by three factors, the target audience, the object of research, and the linguists' self-assessed language competence. While these factors unanimously point into one direction, English, among the English specialists, they produce conflicts for others, especially within the German department. Proposals are therefore made to ease publishing in an academic L2 and simultaneously preserve the multilingualism of the language-sensitive disciplines within academia.

JALT2014 Plenary Speaker article: Foreign language teaching and the multilingual subject

Claire Kramsch is Professor of German and Affiliate Professor of Education at the University of California, Berkeley, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Applied Linguistics and directs doctoral dissertations in the German Department and in the Graduate School of Education. She has written extensively on language, discourse, and culture in foreign language education. Two of her books, Context and Culture in Language Teaching (OUP, 1993) and The Multilingual Subject (OUP, 2009) won the Mildenberger Award from the American Modern Language Association. She is the past president of the American Association for Applied Linguistics and the current president of the International Association of Applied Linguistics.

German Studies, for Example

In the famous chapter “Sense-Certainty” of the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel expends a great deal of dialectical energy to show that we make contradictory use of examples (Beispiele): on the one hand, we invoke the concreteness and distinctiveness of a singular datum; on the other, we imply that it has general significance. Examples confuse our thinking because they claim to be valid for a larger set of instances (thus approaching the validity of a concept), but unlike concepts they do not let us understand how this claim can be substantiated. I begin my contribution to the conversation “The Changing Face(s) of Graduate Studies” with this reference to Hegel for the obvious reason that our experiences with a new PhD program in German studies at the University of Colorado (CU) Boulder cannot readily be generalized. We had the fortune of being able to start, in 2013, with a clean slate and very few restrictions as far as the intellectual profile and the administrative format of the program were concerned. Not only were we able to think about what kind of interdisciplinary collaborations could be built into its design, what kind of students we wanted to attract, and what we could offer these students as a significant advantage over other existing programs; we could more fundamentally ask ourselves – and would be asked by the various committees through which we had to shepherd the proposal – why a university in the United States needed a PhD program in German in the first place. The way this question was, and often still is, answered is the less obvious reason why I began with the trite and pointless reference to Hegel. It goes something like this: German philosophical aesthetics is foundational for all literary theory; literary studies without this foundation are blind. The question why a university in the United States needs a German Department must be stood on its head: without a German Department, other literature departments do not fully understand what they are doing. The first time I was involved in building a PhD program in German, almost a quarter of a century ago, that was the rationale with which we were able to convince administrators in a university without a strong tradition in the humanities. We also had the backing of faculty in other literature programs, who were relieved to send students interested in Derridean and de Manian deconstruction our way. It was already then a slightly embarrassing argument, for on the one hand it embraced the most hackneyed trope of German literary and cultural (not to mention musical) superiority, while on the other hand insinuating to administrators that universities could save money by letting one department do all the

Akutschmerztherapie in der stationären Versorgung an deutschen Krankenhäusern

In 2007, the German national guidelines on "Treatment of acute perioperative and post-traumatic pain" were published. The aim of this study was to describe current structure and process data for acute pain management in German hospitals and to compare how the guidelines and other initiatives such as benchmarking or certification changed the healthcare landscape in the last decade.All directors of German departments of anesthesiology according to the DGAI ("Deutschen Gesellschaft für Anästhesiologie und Intensivmedizin", German Society for Anesthesiology and Intensive Care) were mailed a standardized questionnaire on structures and processes of acute pain management in their hospitals.A total of 403 completed questionnaires (46 %) could be evaluated. Of hospitals, 81 % had an acute pain service (ASD), whereby only 45 % met defined quality criteria. Written standards for acute pain management were available in 97 % of the hospitals on surgical wards and 51 % on nonsurgical wards. In 96 %, perioperative pain was regularly recorded (generally pain at rest and/or movement, pain-related functional impairment in 16 % only). Beside these routine measurements, only 38 % of hospitals monitored pain for effectiveness after acute medications. Often interdisciplinary working groups and/or pain managers are established for hospital-wide control. As specific therapy, the patient-controlled analgesia and epidural analgesia are largely prevalent (> 90 % of all hospitals). In the last decade, intravenous and oral opioid administration of opioids (including slow release preparations) has become established in acute pain management.The survey was representative by evaluating 20 % of all German hospitals. The organizational requirements for appropriate pain management recommended by the German guidelines for acute pain recommended have been established in the hospital sector in recent years. However, the organizational enforcement for acute pain management in nonsurgical areas is not adequate yet, compared to the perioperative care. In all hospitals modern medication and invasive techniques are widely available.

The Integration of Lukthung Songs into the German Language Teaching and Learning Process of Thai Students

This academic article aims to share an experience of integrating German language teaching with the preservation of Thai art and culture. Thai country songs or “Phleng Lukthung” were used as a medium in different courses and projects of the Department of German, Faculty of Arts, Silpakorn University. Lukthung songs were translated into German in addition to German texts which were written to be sung with Thai Lukthung melodies. These texts can be used as teaching materials and study content. The skills necessary to translate and sing Lukthung songs in German were taught, both in classes and during rehearsals for public performances. The integration of German language Lukthung songs in different forms has contributed to the development of German language skills of these groups of learners while at the same time being supportive of the integration of their knowledge with other disciplines. This case study can therefore be considered as a model of good practice on how to integrate Thai art and culture in the process of foreign language teaching and learning.

Beurteilen und Bewerten im DaF- Studiengang

Assessing and evaluating in the Deutsch course
 The debate about the German language lessons is decisively shaped worldwide by keywords like evaluation and assessment. The situation at the Algerian universities and in the German department is similar. The examination and testing procedure is constantly being questioned because the results achieved do not correspond to the wishes of the teaching team. In this article, the interest is in pursuing the question of assessment and evaluation in the context of the German department at the University of Oran. The German language course is the focus of the present study. The previous experience with regard to the implementation of tests and examinations that are planned in each semester in the respective subjects is considered a particular inspiration for this analysis. In addition, due to the persisting problem of evaluation, countless conferences, congresses and workshops are regularly organized worldwide. However, one would like to emphasize that assessment didactics in the German language as a foreign language area have made huge strides in the last two decades. There is already a consensus on the most important assessment criteria. The European Framework of Reference, which provides interesting strategies and techniques for assessment and assessment in German language as a foreign language lessons, is considered one of the most important reference sources for evaluation.

Phlebologie an deutschen Hautkliniken

Phlebologic diseases have become extremely common and have major socio-economic impact. However, the percentage of dermatologists working in phlebology appears to be decreasing according to the data of the German Society of Phlebology (DGP).To investigate the reasons for this development, we--on behalf of the DGP--sent a questionnaire to 120 German Departments of Dermatology in autumn 2012.In 76 returned questionnaires, the number of physicians with additional fellowship training in phlebology averaged 1.5; the average number of those who fulfill the criteria for training fellows in phlebology was 0.9. In 71.1 % of the departments there was a phlebologist. A special phlebologic outpatient clinic existed in 73.7 % of the departments. Sonography with Doppler (89.5 %) and duplex (86.8 %) was used as the most frequent diagnostic tool. For therapy, compression (94.7 %), sclerotherapy (liquid 78.9 %, foam 63.2 %, catheter 18.4 %), endoluminal thermic procedures (radio wave 28.9 %, laser 17.1 %) and surgery (especially crossectomy and stripping 67.1 %, phlebectomy of tributaries 75 %) were used. The average number of treatments was very heterogenous in the different departments.Phlebology definitely plays an important role in dermatology. Most departments fulfill the formal criteria for the license to conduct advanced training in phlebology. A wide spectrum of phlebological diagnostic and therapeutic procedures is available.

Standards of Scoring, Monitoring, and Parameter Targeting in German Neurocritical Care Units: A National Survey

Optimal management of physiological parameters in neurological/neurosurgical intensive care units (NICUs) is largely unclear as high-quality evidence is lacking. The aim of this survey was to investigate if standards exist in the use of clinical scores, systemic and cerebral monitoring and the targeting of physiology values and in what way this affects clinical management in German NICUs. National survey, on-line anonymized questionnaire. German departments stating to run a neurological, neurosurgical or interdisciplinary neurological/neurosurgical intensive care unit were identified by a web-based search of all German hospitals and contacted via email. Responses from 78 German NICUs were obtained. Of 19 proposed clinical/laboratory/radiological scores only 5 were used regularly by >60 %. Bedside neuromonitoring (NM) predominantly consisted of transcranial Doppler sonography (94 %), electroencephalography (92 %) and measurement of intracranial pressure (ICP) (90 %), and was installed if patients had or were threatened by elevated ICP (86 %), had specific diseases like subarachnoid hemorrhage (51 %) or were comatose (35 %). Although mean trigger values for interventions complied with guidelines or wide-spread customs, individual trigger values varied widely, e.g., for hyperglycemia (maximum blood glucose between 120 and 250 mg/dl) or for anemia (minimum hemoglobin values between 5 and 10 g/dl). Although apparently aiming for standardization in neurocritical care, German NICUs show substantial differences in NM and monitoring-associated interventions. In terms of scoring and monitoring methods, German NICUs seem to be quite conservative. These survey results suggest a need of prospective and randomized interventional trials in neurocritical care to help define standards and target values.

Visuality and Materiality in the Story of Tristan and Isolde ed. by Jutta Eming, Ann Marie Rasmussen, and Katheryn Starkey (review)

Reviewed by: Visuality and Materiality in the Story of Tristan and Isolde ed. by Jutta Eming, Ann Marie Rasmussen, and Katheryn Starkey Joan Tasker Grimbert jutta eming, ann marie rasmussen, and katheryn starkey, eds., Visuality and Materiality in the Story of Tristan and Isolde. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012. Pp. 355. isbn: 978–0–268–04139–7. $45. This fine and gorgeously illustrated collection of twelve essays grew out of a conference held at Duke University and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 2007. Noting that the Tristan legend is the most widely depicted secular story of the Middle Ages and that it is both pan-European and cross-medial, the editors invited medievalists from different fields to engage in an interdisciplinary dialogue on the twin themes of visuality and materiality. Although these themes overlap, ‘visuality’ refers to depictions conveying specific meanings and to images, objects, performance, and processes of visually perceiving, while ‘materiality’ refers to objects, manuscripts, and places on and in which the story appears, as well as the construction of space, objects, bodies, and material signs. Although the title and the editors’ goals strongly imply that the essays will range over several ‘national’ literatures, the volume is resolutely and unapologetically German-centric and focused squarely on Gottfried von Strassburg: eleven of the thirteen contributors are from departments of German, and six of the essays are on Gottfried, with one other on Hans Sachs. The volume begins with an excellent introduction in which the editors provide a rationale for their project, define their two key terms, offer a brief survey of critical trends used to interpret the legend, and describe the various essays, underscoring links among many of them. The essays in part I, ‘Courtly Bodies, Seeing, and Emotions,’ reframe the classical debates on Gottfried by underscoring the importance of seeing and visualization in the representation of love in his poem. Asserting that visuality is the core of courtly life, Jan-Dirk Müller (‘The Light of Courtly Society: Blanscheflur and Riwalin’) claims that the love of Tristan’s parents, unlike that of Tristan and Isolde, is called leal because it confirms what everyone can see. In ‘How to Find Love in Literature: Reading Gottfried von Strassburg’s Tristan and His Cave of Lovers,’ Haiko Wandhoff seeks to show that the re-creation of the love grotto is a mise-en-abyme of a work in which Gottfried and Tristan find love through artistic endeavors, and the reader does so by refined interpretation. James A. Schultz (‘Why Do Tristan and Isolde Make Love? The Love Potion as a Milestone in the History of Sexuality’) argues that neither Eilhart nor Gottfried cares why their protagonists fall in love and seek consummation; refusing to treat these questions, the authors use the love potion to [End Page 129] mark their distance from medieval doctors and theologians, who invoke, respectively, ‘appetites’ and ‘concupiscence’: for them, the cause of love is simply love. Ludger Lieb (‘Seeing Love in the World of Lovers: Late Medieval Love Literature as a Fulfillment of Gottfried’s Tristan’) examines Minnereden (discourses on love) to show how, by making love visible through personification, allegory, and symptoms, they extend and elaborate core concepts of Tristan’s love, as set forth explicitly in Gottfried’s prologue. Part II, ‘Media, Representation, and Performance,’ explores the reshaping of the legend for different media. Michael Curschmann (‘From Myth to Emblem to Panorama’) traces the legend from the earliest French verse poems through its crystallization in a single image (the orchard scene) to its change of medium and focus in Malory’s ‘Arthuriad’—and already, I would argue, in the French Prose Tristan—and finally to Swinburne’s 18th-century epic renewal of the legend, which infuses it with some of the original energy. Elke Koch (‘Framing Tristan—Taming Tristan? The Materiality of Text and Body in Hans Sachs’s Tragedia’) describes the strategies that Sachs uses in dramatizing the prose Tristrant and Isalde to represent love as a dangerous drive that he ‘contains’ by limiting all commentary to the prologue and epilogue, where the herald provides an explicitly moral and repressive view. Amanda Luyster’s title, ‘Time, Space, and...

Agglomeration economies and clustering – evidence from German and European firms

This article empirically analyses the impact of agglomeration economies on the clustering of German and European firms using partial proportional-odds models. Firms are grouped according to industry and divided into departments. At the industry level, I find evidence for inter-industry economies derived from the New Economic Geography (NEG) framework for European firms in general and German knowledge-intensive firms in particular. At the department level, Marshallian Externalities such as the hiring of skilled labour and technological spillover, and therefore intra-industry economies, are empirically confirmed for European and German departments like Human Resources and R&D but rarely for others.

First Performative Teaching and Learning Symposium

On 13th and 14th September 2013, University College Cork (UCC) hosted a symposium which centred on performative practices across different disciplines. It was officially opened by David Ryan, Vice-Head for Teaching and Learning at the College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences, UCC, who congratulated the Departments of German and Drama and Theatre Studies, UCC, on organising the first symposium of this kind in Ireland and thus engaging with theoretical perspectives and practices which aim at paving the way towards a new, performative teaching and learning culture. The organisers had formulated some guiding questions: What is the essence of the ‘performative’? Are there any indications of an increased ‘performative orientation’ in some of our disciplines? Could the ‘performative concept’ signal a whole new way of thinking and acting in the field of teaching and learning? What are the characteristic features of performative teaching and learning? How does one learn to teach in a performative way? The two-day symposium opened with a keynote address by Wolfgang Nitsch (Professor Emeritus of Education, University of Oldenburg & Honorary Professor, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU), Port Elizabeth), followed by eight papers, finishing with a panel discussion. In his keynote address Towards performativity as ...

Current Practice of Methylprednisolone Administration for Acute Spinal Cord Injury in Germany

Written mail-out survey. To determine current practice in high-dose methylprednisolone succinate (MPSS) administration for treatment of acute spinal cord injury (SCI) in Germany. Reanalysis of the National Acute Spinal Cord Injury Studies (NASCIS) resulted in criticism of the use of high-dose MPSS for treatment of acute SCI. Subsequently, SCI treatment guidelines were revised leading to a reduction in MPSS use across North America. The impact of these revisions on SCI treatment in Germany is not known. A questionnaire was sent to all trauma, orthopedic and neurosurgical departments of German university centers, affiliated teaching hospitals, and specialized SCI care centers. Survey included 6 questions about the administration of MPSS after acute SCI. Three hundred seventy-two respondents completed the survey (response rate: 51% overall, 76% university hospitals, 85% specialized SCI care centers). Overall, 55% of departments that treat SCI prescribe MPSS. Among them, 73% are "frequent" users administering MPSS to more than 50% of their patients. Ten percent prescribe according to NASCIS I, 43% NASCIS II, 33% NASCIS III, and 13% "generic protocols." As justification for MPSS treatment, "effectiveness" ranked before "common practice" and "medicolegal reasons." "Specialized" SCI care centers differ in that (1) MPSS is administered less frequently, (2) NASCIS I doses are not used, and (3) during the past several years, practice patterns are more likely to have shifted away from the treatment of SCI with MPSS. About one-half of the institutions continue to prescribe MPSS in the setting of acute SCI. A need for further education in almost one-fourth of German departments treating acute SCI is demonstrated through responses indicating use of the outdated NASCIS I protocol, a "legal need" or "unchanged MPSS application during the last years." "Specialized" SCI centers are more likely to change their practice in accordance with evolving literature. 3.

Results of the Students' Lecturer Evaluations and Evaluations of Their Own Learning-Outcomes in Accordance with the Bologna Process in German as a Second Foreign Language Program (G2FL)

Purpose of the Study: While preparing for the Bologna process at our university, student involvement was essential. During the university-wide, end of semester survey, students were asked to evaluate their instructors as well as their individual learning outcomes. Our goal, in the Department of G2FL, was to quantitatively analyze the survey results, the effectiveness of the Department’s language teaching methods and ultimately to ascertain student learning outcomes. Methods: In the first part of the survey, students evaluated their instructors. They answered 15 questions using a five-point scale. In the second part of the survey, they evaluated their own learning outcomes in five language competencies. The data obtained from the students’ evaluation were qualitatively analized by the German Department. Findings: Based on the survey results, the G2FL Department scored higher than the entire university. Most of the students rated themselves good/very good in listening, reading, and writing skills. However, they gave themselves lower marks in the two-way conversation and the oral explanation competencies. Discussions: After the survey, the opinions of 778 students in German Language courses were evaluated by 12 German Language Lecturers. Finally, the opinions of both students and instructors were analyzed by the Department Head. Conclusion: We concluded that our teaching strategy should include a greater emphasis on improving student conversational competency in German. As such, this year-end survey identifies essential learning, concomitantly, the teaching of specific competencies. Once the results are analyzed in detail, they are very useful for improving the quality of teaching as well as learning.

The history of inpatient care in german departments focussing on natural healing.

We describe historic developments of inhouse facilities for natural healing in this paper, which were mainly located in German speaking regions. The naturopathic movement is a relabeling of the hydropathic movement in Germany, which was supported by a considerable proportion of the population in Germany during the mid 19th century. Due to the fact that hydropathic treatments were provided by nonmedical healers, discriminated as “quacks”, there was continuous hostility between hydropathy/naturopathy and medicine. However, among the many establishments providing inhouse treatment for acute and chronic diseases over weeks there were some which were controlled by medical doctors in the 20th century and some which were implemented by government. In many of the establishments there were approaches for measuring usefulness of the treatments, some of which have been initiated explicitly for that purpose.

Counterparty Credit Risk and Clearing of Derivatives – From the Perspective of an Industrial Corporate with a Focus on Commodity Markets

The Global Financial Crisis had a severe impact on the commodity markets on top of the well-known effects on the worldwide economy. Not only the demand for commodities decreased severely thereby hurting the creditworthiness of participants in the wholesale commodity markets, but also the financial standing of commodity customers was negatively impacted including even insolvencies. Two examples are known from the media but are regularly not perceived as commodity related: Lehman was also a participant in the commodity wholesale markets and the German department store Karstadt is still a big customer in the German power market. This paper describes the various types of credit exposures encountered in the commodity markets, the available tools for credit risk management with a special focus on clearing, CDS, the hedging and pricing of transactions differentiated according to their degree of liquidity with a view on contingent CDS. The peculiarities of commodity markets lead to a tailored application of actuarial techniques for practical portfolio management. The application of a three stochastic factor model (commodity, credit, and correlation of the two) to an example portfolio shows that an inefficient use of economic capital is risked if an approach too close to the banking industry is chosen. Worked out examples are presented in order to address readers with a non-industrial background.A revised version has been published in the book: Credit Portfolio Securitizations and Derivatives. Chichester: Wiley & Sons 2013.

Whither the Study of German Art?

Whither the Study of German Art? Barbara McCloskey Art historians in German studies face a contradiction. On the one hand, our field is thoroughly Germanic. The founding intellects of art history as a discipline are virtually all German or German-speaking: Erwin Panofsky, Heinrich Wölfflin, Alois Riegl, and the list goes on. No student at the undergraduate or graduate level can escape contending with the methodological and theoretical insights these founders offered to the field over a century ago. Moreover, their works continue to be mined even as the objects of study and questions that motivate art history have become interdisciplinary and global in recent decades: Panofsky is still invoked in studies of Peruvian iconography, Wölfflin is still relevant to analyses of formal change in the art of Waziristan, and Riegl still offers insight into the material culture of Romania and its connections to broader international and transnational flows of artistic production and reception. So the field is root and branch Germanic. But while art history relies on the theoretical insights of its German-speaking founders, it perennially proves itself less interested in the study of German art. For large swaths of its history, the discipline has negatively assessed Germany’s premodern and early modern artistic achievements as “barbaric,” or in less incendiary terms “unclassic.” Dürer usually stands out as an exception to this assessment. It should be noted, however, that his redemptive status frequently owes a great deal to his Italianate artistic leanings. When we turn to Germany’s artistic achievements of the modern era, the charge is typically that they are “derivative.” Liebermann, so it goes, is Monet with a time lag. Expressionism might be exempt in this regard, given its wide recognition as Germany’s most original, vanguard contribution to the history of modern art. Even here, though, the work of Kirchner, Nolde, and others fails to escape the pall of the derivative entirely. In its long historiography, some have adjudged Expressionism (rightly or wrongly and usually as part of a nationalist agenda) as simply a more angst-ridden variant of the subjective subject matter and bravura use of color seen in the works of Van Gogh, Gauguin, and the Fauves. And what about Germany’s other artistic heritage of the modern era—its imperial, Nazi, and East German manifestations? Despite years of revisionism, art history remains hard pressed to consider this [End Page 480] other heritage as anything more than “nonart” propaganda. As a result, the discipline tends to rule it out of court entirely. I exaggerate, of course. There are myriad examples of publications, conferences, and college art association panels that prove to the contrary that German art has a viable place in the discipline. But in this moment of curricular “streamlining,” “rubrics,” and “outcomes assessment”—not to mention the shuttering of German departments—the case has become if anything harder to make that students should devote more time to Beckmann than to Picasso. One could claim that Beckmann’s vivid palette and sonorous imagery rival or surpass similar endeavors in the art of his School of Paris contemporaries. But few would argue that Picasso’s meditations on space and the building blocks of representation were anything other than seismic in their impact on art, perception, and what we have come to think of as “the modern.” From an art-historical standpoint, Picasso is simply more important than Beckmann. If one has to choose, Beckmann is therefore more likely to get the axe. In 1993, Hans Belting explored Germany’s historically “troublesome relationship” to its art.1 “Troublesome” is also a good term to use in describing art history’s relationship to German art in general. And why is this? The standard favoring of Italian, French, and American contributions to (Western) art’s history over German ones naturally has a good deal to do with history writ large. To state the obvious, the value ascribed to German art has not been enhanced by the country’s instigation of two cataclysmic world wars. The significance of Germany’s culture in general has proven difficult for the world community to perceive and to countenance as a result. At various times and in various ways...

Nach dem Deutschstudium in Afrika wird man – was? Eine Überprüfung der Zielsetzungen der Deutschabteilung der Universität Lomé anhand einer Verbleibstudie

This paper reports on an investigation of the value of German Studies in eventual employment ofstudents in this field. The objectives of German Studies in Africa have to include an indication of howinclusion in the curriculum is legitimized. Three approaches towards legitimization have developedsince the establishment of German Departments at African Universities, namely (i) German Studieswith a view to research and epistemological science, (ii) German in intercultural studies, and (iii)career-oriented German language learning. In this paper the implementation of these approaches willbe examined on the basis of the objectives set out by the German Department at the University ofLomé. This will be done by discussing the results of a survey on the professional whereabouts ofTogolese German Studies graduates to demonstrate the extent to which the objectives of the variousapproaches have been met. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the findingsfor the programmes of the German Department at the University of Lomé.

Drug‐Induced Blood Consumption: The Impact of Adverse Drug Reactions on Demand for Blood Components in German Departments of Internal Medicine

Therapy for adverse drug reactions (ADRs) often results in the application of blood components. This study aims to assess the demand for blood components and the resulting economic burden (hospital perspective) in German hospitals induced by ADRs leading to admissions to departments of internal medicine. In this prospective study, ADRs leading to hospitalization were surveyed in four regional pharmacovigilance centres in Germany during the years 2000-2007. ADRs assessed as 'possible', 'likely' or 'very likely' were included. Market prices for blood components and hospitalization data were determined by desktop research. A probabilistic sensitivity analysis was performed. A total of 6099 patients were admitted to internal medicine departments because of an outpatient ADR of whom 1165 patients (19.1%; mean age, 73.0 ± 13.0 years) required treatment with blood components owing to major bleeding events. Overall consumption was 4185 erythrocyte concentrates (EC), 426 fresh frozen plasma (FFP) and 48 thrombocyte (TC) units. On the basis of statistical hospital data, we estimated a nationwide demand of approximately 132,020 EC, 13,440 FFP and 1515 TC units, resulting in total costs of €12.66 million per year for all German hospitals. Some 19.2% of all ADR cases were assessed as preventable. Theoretically, a nationwide decreased demand for blood components and a savings potential of €2.43 million per year could be achieved by preventing ADRs in Germany. Blood components are used in one-fifth (mainly gastrointestinal bleeding) of all ADRs, leading to hospitalizations in internal medicine departments. Both blood demand and hospital procurement costs can be significantly lowered by preventing ADRs.