Including medicine: Students learn from people with impairments!

Including medicine: Students learn from people with impairments!

As part of an innovative research project at the Medical Faculty of Ostwestfalen-Lippe (OWL), medical students will in future benefit from people with intellectual and physical impairments in their training. This project, known as Frimel, is carried out by the Betheler Hospital Mara and the faculty and receives a funding of around 300,000 euros from the Innovation Foundation in University Teaching. The aim is to promote understanding and respect for the experiences of people with impairments and to advance including medicine.

The involvement of people with impairments in the lecturer team will take place from the second year of study. Teaching assistants will show the students how they experience diseases in everyday life and train the exchange in easy language. This should not only train communication, but also to be dismantled.

an inclusive teaching concept

Professor Dr. Tanja Sappok, who is the first owner of a professorship for people with disabilities with a focus on mental health in Germany, heads the project together with Professor Dr. Christian Brandt, who has a professorship for epileptology with a focus on disability medicine. Her expertise plays a central role in the development of a tailor -made training concept for future lecturers. Currently, four scientific employees and the first four inclusive teaching assistants are already part of the project team.

The project officially started on April 1, 2024, and after training at the beginning of 2025, the first courses are to begin in the summer semester. Initial feedback from the participants are consistently positive, whereby the project meetings are described as enriching and exceptional.

a step towards inclusion in university education

This initiative falls into a greater context of the discussion about inclusion in university formation, as stated in the UN Convention on the rights of people with disabilities that Germany signed in 2009. The target group that benefits from such projects and approaches are primarily people with disabilities.

In addition, the concept of diversity in university formation is taken into account in order to integrate a heterogeneous student body. The educational server offers a collection of links to support approaches of inclusion and their implementation at German universities, as well as concrete information and offers for students with impairments in the context of the target group offer "Disability and Studies". Various approaches to improve and promote the participation of students with impairments and disabilities are crucial to create an inclusive society and to continuously improve the framework conditions in university formation.