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Purpose: This study aimed to find out more about factors that hinder physicians' careers, especially with regard to gender differences, and which future working conditions they would prefer., Methods: In an online survey, members of the professional societies of Hematology and Oncology in Germany, Austria and Switzerland were asked to rate factors that might hinder or facilitate their professional career. Data analysis included χ 2 -tests, t tests and analyses of variance., Results: 469 physicians participated (61% female, response rate 9.1%). 40% of the participants experience a lack of compatibility between family life and career. Female physicians with children living in their household especially feel restricted in their professional development. The most preferred conditions for improving compatibility were flexible working hours (72%), opportunities to work in home office (71%), better opportunities for specialist training (51%) and enabling managerial activities on a part-time basis (73%). Both female and male physicians would like fathers to be encouraged to take parental leave to the same extent as mothers (50%). They would, e.g., like to see more flexible drop-off and pickup times for children (71%) and more childcare options offered by their employer (61%)., Conclusion: Results suggest various options for promoting compatibility of family life and work, e.g., by family-friendly working time models and part-time offers breaking with traditional role models. Managerial positions might be offered on a regular part-time basis. Structured qualification programs could enable the compatibility of clinical work, research and family life. Childcare services should preferably be provided in line with existing needs., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

When Adolf Hitler annexed Austria to the German Reich in 1938, the famous Jewish oral pathologist Bernhard Gottlieb was in great distress. The Viennese university teacher immediately lost his employment and teaching authority and was forced to emigrate.While Gottlieb's exceptional scientific position in oral pathology is well documented, the complex implications of his deprivation of rights and forced emigration in the Third Reich have so far received little attention. Against this background, the present contribution poses the question of the concrete effects of this drastic event on Gottlieb's life and work.In order to clarify this question, Gottlieb's career status, his scientific success up to 1938, the concrete background of his forced emigration, as well as the further course of his life and career in the USA (his immigration country) are scrutinized. In addition, the paper analyzes the extent to which Gottlieb was able to build on his professional career after 1945 and posthumously. The work is based on a thorough analysis of Gottlieb's academic career using archival sources and a re-analysis of the relevant research literature.The study concludes that Gottlieb suffered a severe setback after his emigration. Several reasons played a role. In particular, cultural and age-related adjustment problems, difficult local conditions, and scarce financial resources hampered the seamless continuation of Gottlieb's career in the USA. Only in the last two decades have efforts been made, particularly in the environment of the University of Vienna, to bring Bernhard Gottlieb and his scientific achievements back into collective memory., (© 2020. Springer Medizin Verlag GmbH, ein Teil von Springer Nature.)

This paper briefly summarizes the late-breaking session "Pathology and COVID-19" that took place at the virtual congress of the German Society of Pathology on June 6, 2020. The lectures tackled a broad variety of aspects, including the German Registry for COVID-19 autopsies (DeRegCOVID), the detection methods of SARS-CoV‑2 in pathological material, the typical lung findings in severe COVID-19 cases, the distinct (micro)vascular changes and the cardiac and gastrointestinal involvement in COVID-19. In summary, in this first scientific meeting in German pathology on the COVID-19 pandemic, it became clear that pathologists in Germany, Austria and Switzerland have reacted very quickly to the pandemic and have established an autopsy program that has led to medically highly relevant findings.

When Adolf Hitler annexed Austria to the German Reich in 1938, the famous Jewish oral pathologist Bernhard Gottlieb was in great distress. The Viennese university teacher immediately lost his employment and teaching authority and was forced to emigrate.While Gottlieb's exceptional scientific position in oral pathology is well documented, the complex implications of his deprivation of rights and forced emigration in the Third Reich have so far received little attention. Against this background, the present contribution poses the question of the concrete effects of this drastic event on Gottlieb's life and work.In order to clarify this question, Gottlieb's career status, his scientific success up to 1938, the concrete background of his forced emigration, as well as the further course of his life and career in the USA (his immigration country) are scrutinized. In addition, the paper analyzes the extent to which Gottlieb was able to build on his professional career after 1945 and posthumously. The work is based on a thorough analysis of Gottlieb's academic career using archival sources and a re-analysis of the relevant research literature.The study concludes that Gottlieb suffered a severe setback after his emigration. Several reasons played a role. In particular, cultural and age-related adjustment problems, difficult local conditions, and scarce financial resources hampered the seamless continuation of Gottlieb's career in the USA. Only in the last two decades have efforts been made, particularly in the environment of the University of Vienna, to bring Bernhard Gottlieb and his scientific achievements back into collective memory.

To eradicate rabies in foxes, almost 97 million oral rabies vaccine baits have been distributed in Germany and Austria since 1983 and 1986, respectively. Since 2007, no terrestrial cases have been reported in either country. The most widely used oral rabies vaccine viruses in these countries were SAD (Street Alabama Dufferin) strains, e.g. SAD B19 (53.2%) and SAD P5/88 (44.5%). In this paper, we describe six possible vaccine-virus-associated rabies cases in red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) detected during post-vaccination surveillance from 2001 to 2006, involving two different vaccines and different batches. Compared to prototypic vaccine strains, full-genome sequencing revealed between 1 and 5 single nucleotide alterations in the L gene in 5 of 6 SAD isolates, resulting in up to two amino acid substitutions. However, experimental infection of juvenile foxes showed that those mutations had no influence on pathogenicity. The cases described here, coming from geographically widely separated regions, do not represent a spatial cluster. More importantly, enhanced surveillance showed that the vaccine viruses involved did not become established in the red fox population. It seems that the number of reported vaccine virus-associated rabies cases is determined predominantly by the intensity of surveillance after the oral rabies vaccination campaign and not by the selection of strains.

This paper gives a comparative overview of the current clinical care of patients experiencing pain in the musculoskeletal system in Austria and in Germany. The questionnaire used in this study was modified from one used in a survey carried out in Germany in 2002. In our version we asked specifically about pain in the musculoskeletal system. In all 228 health care facilities were reviewed, 56.6% of which offer at least one option for pain therapy. In Austria, the majority of patients with pain in the musculoskeletal system are treated by specialists in the departments of anaesthesiology, internal medicine, and orthopaedics. In 17.4% of the clinics in Austria there are plans to extend the pain therapy they offer, but in over half of the hospitals that responded facilities for pain therapy are considered to be vulnerable. The study highlights a significant higher percentage of in-patient pain therapy services in Austria, while in Germany, in contrast, there are more outpatient options for pain therapy. The quality of pain therapy could by further improved by more intense cooperation between the inpatient and outpatient sectors and by the establishment of interdisciplinary and multimodal solutions.

This article reports about the internet based, second multicenter study (MCS II) of the spine study group (AG WS) of the German trauma association (DGU). It represents a continuation of the first study conducted between the years 1994 and 1996 (MCS I). For the purpose of one common, centralised data capture methodology, a newly developed internet-based data collection system ( http://www.memdoc.org ) of the Institute for Evaluative Research in Orthopaedic Surgery of the University of Bern was used. The aim of this first publication on the MCS II was to describe in detail the new method of data collection and the structure of the developed data base system, via internet. The goal of the study was the assessment of the current state of treatment for fresh traumatic injuries of the thoracolumbar spine in the German speaking part of Europe. For that reason, we intended to collect large number of cases and representative, valid information about the radiographic, clinical and subjective treatment outcomes. Thanks to the new study design of MCS II, not only the common surgical treatment concepts, but also the new and constantly broadening spectrum of spine surgery, i.e. vertebro-/kyphoplasty, computer assisted surgery and navigation, minimal-invasive, and endoscopic techniques, documented and evaluated. We present a first statistical overview and preliminary analysis of 18 centers from Germany and Austria that participated in MCS II. A real time data capture at source was made possible by the constant availability of the data collection system via internet access. Following the principle of an application service provider, software, questionnaires and validation routines are located on a central server, which is accessed from the periphery (hospitals) by means of standard Internet browsers. By that, costly and time consuming software installation and maintenance of local data repositories are avoided and, more importantly, cumbersome migration of data into one integrated database becomes obsolete. Finally, this set-up also replaces traditional systems wherein paper questionnaires were mailed to the central study office and entered by hand whereby incomplete or incorrect forms always represent a resource consuming problem and source of error. With the new study concept and the expanded inclusion criteria of MCS II 1, 251 case histories with admission and surgical data were collected. This remarkable number of interventions documented during 24 months represents an increase of 183% compared to the previously conducted MCS I. The concept and technical feasibility of the MEMdoc data collection system was proven, as the participants of the MCS II succeeded in collecting data ever published on the largest series of patients with spinal injuries treated within a 2 year period.