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Background: Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, on-site classroom teaching became limited at most German medical universities. This caused a sudden demand for digital teaching concepts. How the transfer from classroom to digital teaching or digitally assisted teaching was conducted was decided by each university and/or department individually. As a surgical discipline, Orthopaedics and Trauma have a particular focus on hands-on teaching as well as direct contact to patients. Therefore, specific challenges in designing digital teaching concepts were expected to arise. Aim of this study was to evaluate medical teaching at German universities one year into the pandemic as well as to identify potentials and pitfalls in order to develop possible optimization approaches., Methods: A questionnaire with 17 items was designed and sent to the professors in charge of organising the teaching in Orthopaedics and Trauma at each medical university. A differentiation between Orthopaedics and Trauma was not made to allow a general overview. We collected the answers and conducted a qualitative analysis., Results: We received 24 replies. Each university reported a substantial reduction of their classroom teaching and efforts to transfer their teaching to digital formats. Three sites were able to switch to digital teaching concepts completely, whereas others tried to enable classroom and bedside teaching at least for students of higher edcuational levels. The online platforms used varied depending on the university as well as the format it was supposed to support., Conclusion: One year into the pandemic significant differences concerning the proportions of classroom and digital teaching for Orthopaedics and Trauma can be observed. Simultaneously huge differences in concepts used to create digital teaching are present. Since a complete suspense of classroom teaching was never mandatory, several universities developed hygiene concepts to enable hands-on and bedside teaching. Despite these differences, some similarities were observed: the lack of time and personnel to generate adequate teaching material was reported as the leading challenge by all participants of this study., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Introduction: The German practical year is the last clinical placement period during Medical School. However, it remains unclear how medical students evaluate the practical year in orthopaedics and traumatology (Orthopädie und Unfallchirurgie; O & U) and whether it has an impact on becoming an O & U specialist., Method: We analysed data of 146 medical students (46,7% female) who completed the placement in O & U. From the evaluation, 37 items were included in the analyses. Participants who could imagine becoming an O & U specialist (O & U-Ja) following graduation were statistically compared to those who could not (O & U-Nein)., Results: Overall 123 (83.7%) trainees indicated that they would like to become an O & U specialist (O & U-Ja), 18 (12.8%) negated (O & U-Nein) and 6 (4.1%) were undecided. Groups did not differ for sex and age (sex: Chi² = 2.50, p = 0.114; age: F [1.93] < 1, p = 0.764). Group differences were found for practical orientation, independency, acquisition of anamnesis and diagnostics skills and problem-solving expertise with students who could imagine becoming an O & U specialist (O & U-Ja) giving the highest ratings., Discussion: Evaluations of the last medical year are essential in order to continuously improve the internship experience and to attract students towards a certain medical field and, moreover, to post-graduate specialist training. Clinics and institutions who already emphasize on the factors derived from this evaluation, or are continuously working on improvement, might be more able to attract young professionals, since personnel acquisition is starting early in the medical field., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest./Die Autorinnen/Autoren geben an, dass kein Interessenkonflikt besteht., (Thieme. All rights reserved.)

Introduction: In its digital agenda the German Federal Government pursues the ambitious objective to facilitate digital competence and perform research into digital learning and teaching processes. Considerable investments are to be concentrated into the future viability of education, academic research and digitalization. As far as academic teaching and further education are concerned, not only in the field of orthopedics and trauma surgery, three aspects can be identified: digital organization, digital competence and digital tools., Digital Applications: New formats, such as the elective subject digital health of the Charité in Berlin, enable digital competences to be mediated in a multimodal and interdisciplinary way. With the help of a newly developed app the University of Essen provides teachers and students with mobile and flexible access to information on lectures in terms of content and organization. Especially because of transparency, high legal compliance and predictability, the digital logbook for the resident training program promises a real innovation for trainees in the further training reformation. Augmented and virtual reality play a crucial role in the imparting of practical skills and interconnect high-tech with classical craftsmanship. Digital training course formats have significantly gained in importance and are meanwhile well-established tools for efficient advanced medical training., Outlook: If orthopedic and trauma surgeons take an active role in the process of digitalization of teaching, they can take part in decisions, adequately prepare the colleagues of tomorrow, optimize patient care, encourage innovations and altogether improve the discipline even more.

Competing Interests: Die Autoren geben an, dass kein Interessenkonflikt besteht.