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Doctorate

Possibilities of a dissertation in the Med 3

Report 1

At the end of my 5th semester of human medicine I started my dissertation in the Medical Clinic 3. In the following year and a half I investigated whether psoriasis patients without any evidence of psoriatic arthritis show bony changes compared to healthy people. Such changes can be for example bone augmentations or erosive changes that can be detected by high-resolution peripheral quantitative computed tomography (HR-pQCT).

My tasks were to coordinate the course of the patient examination, to build up the patient cohort and to evaluate the data.

The patients were admitted to the Med 3 study outpatient clinic, clinically cared for by a treating physician and underwent an HR-pQCT measurement, which I examined for the changes described above.

The task of the doctorate was very well defined in terms of content and time to the required extent and period. Whenever questions arose, I could always turn to Dr. med. Jürgen Rech, head of the outpatient department and my supervisor, who answered them immediately by e-mail, telephone or within a spontaneous meeting.

In addition, the quarterly doctoral student meetings with Prof. Dr. Georg Schett were very helpful. Open questions and possibilities for improvement were discussed there. In addition, these meetings encouraged a lively exchange within the group of doctoral students, so that we could help each other and solve possible problems at short notice.

Very motivating was the opportunity to design my own doctorate in the form of a publication and to be introduced to scientific work and networking by preparing abstracts and submitting them to national and international congresses. Thus I had the opportunity to submit an abstract for the EULAR 2014, which made it possible to apply for the annual Undergraduate Award.

PhD student David Simon

Report 2

It is well known that the road to a successful doctorate is not always easy. The most important thing is a good supervision and this is exactly what the Department for Internal Medicine 3 offers. From the selection of topics to the learning of the methods to the data evaluation and finally the writing of the thesis, there is always and willingly a contact person for any questions. Prof. Dr. Schett himself as a doctoral supervisor always had an open ear for questions or problems, so that agreements could be made very easily and there were hardly any idle periods. Prof. Dr. Schett is very interested in publishing his doctoral theses as a paper in his clinic. This enables doctoral students to publish their dissertations scientifically at a high level and to submit them directly as a doctoral thesis.

We also gained insights into other areas of science. One of the tasks of each doctoral student was to submit his or her topic for upcoming congresses in the form of an abstract. If the abstract was accepted for a poster at the congress, the task was now to design a clear and meaningful poster and to prepare a five-minute lecture on the contents in order to present one's own work within the framework of a poster session at the congress. Here, too, the experienced scientists provided help and assistance at all times, of course, and the chances of accepting the abstract were very good. Thus, every doctoral student had the opportunity to get a taste of national or international "congress air" and to draw attention to his or her topic.

I can only warmly recommend a doctorate in the Department for Internal Medicine 3! I really enjoyed working there, not only in the highs, but also in the lows that scientific work always brings with it, and I don't want to miss the experiences and experiences during my time as a doctoral student there!

PhD student Barbara Herz