Evolution of Medical School systems across Europe – are we at a risk?

Summary of the joint symposium, 13-14 September in Berlin

The background of the AMSE-MFT joint symposium in Berlin, 13-14 September, 2014, was the “uncontrolled” increase of public and private medical schools, franchise-crossborder models of medical schools, differences in medical programmes, in the quality assurance procedures and the automatic recognition of physician licenses across Europe according to the EU Directive 2005/36/EC and EU Directive 2013/55/EU. Competent and well known speakers from different stakeholders such as medical education, Deans of medical schools from different countries, academic hospitals and regulatory authorities, accreditation experts and WHO-Europe presented their data and ideas and more than 50 participants from 18 different countries had stimulating and lively discussions.

At the General Assembly of AMSE, a new constitution was agreed, and the President and full members of the Executive Committee, the Treasurer and Auditors as well as the co-opted members were elected. Furthermore, AMSE was founded as a Non-profit Association based in Berlin, Germany.

The outputs of the meeting which were agreed by all participants were as follows:

• All involved stakeholders should stay in closer touch in the future and improve their communication.
• We must build a closer collaboration with politicians and EU-policy.
• We need Europe-wide standards for medical education programmes, medical schools, franchise-crossborder models of medical schools and academic hospitals.
• Based on these standards AMSE need Europe-wide valid quality assurance procedures.
• Recognition of physician licences should be based on these approved standards and adequate language, knowledge and skills tests.

AMSE must and will take a leading initiative in these proposed outputs in order to ensure that we are not at risk in the future.

Prof Peter Dieter
President of AMSE