It is important that the medical degree programme continues its close affiliation with the research-intensive, clinical units and research environments at the universities and hospitals, write Denmark’s four deans of health.

2019.02.07

The deans from Denmark’s four health science faculties say that the interplay between research and the healthcare system creates invaluable knowledge as well as complex healthcare challenges.

by Lars Bo Nielsen, Dean of the Faculty of Health (AU), Ole Skøtt, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences (SDU), Ulla M. Wewer, Dean of Health and Medical Sciences (KU) and Lars Hvilsted Rasmussen, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine (AAU).

At the health science faculties, we have read the government’s proposal for a healthcare reform with great interest. But don’t forget about research and the research-based healthcare degree programmes when increasing focus on the locally-based healthcare system.

Today the healthcare system is the only public-sector system where research and education are an integrated part of everyday life and where the newest knowledge is utilised daily to deliver better treatment options for the benefit of the patients.

At the health science faculties we collaborate closely with the regions we have now on developing and testing new types of treatment and training and educating the medical doctors of tomorrow. The knowledge which is generated in the close interaction between basic research and the clinical reality saves society in general for wasted resources and helps patients avoid unnecessary hospitalisations and ineffective treatments.

The universities also undertake research-based education of dentists, public health science students, nursing etc. All of these healthcare professionals play a central role in moving healthcare closer to home.

Continued development

If Denmark is to succeed in maintaining an economically viable healthcare system with universal access, then we need to strengthen and expand the collaboration between the universities and the healthcare system.

Here in Denmark, the life science industry is booming, and we are collaborating on the implementation of personalised medicine throughout Denmark. This is also an area where progress can only continue if we together have focus on developing biomedical and clinical expert environments that are world-class.

We must find answers to the issue of how we can maintain the positive development we have – also in a reformed healthcare system with focus on moving healthcare closer to home and greater involvement of the municipalities and general practice.

Education across the country

Together with the regions, we at the universities have made considerable progress in expanding and strengthening creative research environments and medical programmes far beyond the university cities and incorporating general practice into the medical degree programmes. Developments that must continue – also after a healthcare reform. 

During the past decades, the universities have developed a close and unique collaboration with the regional hospitals and the country’s general practitioners. The universities’ wide-ranging cooperation and partnerships with the entire healthcare system have contributed towards medical students today having a great deal of focus on the common diseases that they will meet in general practice, and we have also strengthened their communicative and empathetic competences.

At the same time, we have continued to ensure they receive research-based teaching. This means the students meet the highest-level of research expertise during their education.

The medical degree programme in Denmark must retain its world-class status and together we need to ensure that our university educated healthcare professionals receive a research-based education so they can carry out the research, development and teaching that is part of the core task – also twenty or thirty years in the future.

Complex challenges

It is important that the medical degree programme continues to be closely attached to research-intensive, clinical units and research environments at the universities and hospitals. This is the only way to maintain quality with research integration and development in the degree programme which is required to an ever-greater degree in a society facing complex disease challenges that call for new knowledge.

At the universities, we agree with the government on the importance of striving for coherence and quality, and we support the ambition of focusing on the patient.

These goals can only be achieved by integrating research and research-based education in the work being done on a healthcare reform. We are happy to contribute.