NARIC guide on Higher Education Systems in the European Union

egular participation in ‘practical-year’ training, involving a 48-week period of consecutive practical training at
university
clinics and training hospitals (16-week periods of training in internal medicine, surgery and in one other (optional)
clinical area).
The State examinations, in accordance with the regulations
governing the licensing of physicians (Approbationsordnung
für Ärzte), are administered by the examination boards for
medicine established by the Länder.
(a) The preliminary medical examination is a written examination. As of autumn 1989, it has consisted of both
written and oral parts.
The written part of the preliminary medical examination covers the following subject areas:
(i) physics for students of medicine and physiology
(ii) chemistry for students of medicine and biochemistry
(iii) biology for students of medicine and anatomy
(iv) medical psychology and medical sociology.
The oral examination will cover two of the following subjects:
physiology;
biochemistry;
anatomy;
fundamentals of medical psychology and medical sociology.
(b) The first stage of the medical degree examination is a
written examination and covers the following subjects:
(i) fundamentals of pathology and neuropathology; human genetics; medical microbiology; immunology and immunopathology and the history of medicine;
(ii) dealing with patients; fundamentals of clinical
diagnostics; initial treatment of acute emergency cases and radiology;
(iii) fundamentals of pharmacology and toxicology; pathophysiology and pathobiochemistry, clinical
chemistry and biomathematics.
(c) The second stage of the medical degree examination consists of written and oral parts.
The written examination covers the following subjects:
(i) non-operative areas
(ii) operative areas
(iii) neurology
(iv) ecological areas and general medicine.
In the oral part of the examination, as of autumn 1988, students are tested in one each of the subjects listed
under numbers 1 and 2:
1. internal medicine, surgery, paediatrics, obstetrics and gynaecology, pathology, pharmacology,
microbiology, hygiene, public health and social medicine;
2. general medicine, anaesthesiology, emergency treatment and intensive care, work medicine,
ophthalmology, dermato and venereal diseases, otorhinolaryngology, clinical chemistry, neurology,
orthopaedics, psychiatry, psychosomatic medicine and psychotherapy, radiology, medical law, urology.
(d) The third stage of the medical degree examination is oral and practical in nature.