Where tomorrow’s doctors train

Data science in hospitals

Diagnostics is about identifying the exact cause of symptoms from a huge number of possibilities – and doing so quickly. Automated analyses can help here. “We deploy data scientists directly in hospitals,” says Alexander Meyer, Professor at the Institute of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine at Berlin’s Charité University Hospital. The goal is measurably better patient care.

Doctors training at the university hospital also benefit from this, as they experience the development of new technologies first hand – from treatment planning to hospital management. The AI institute also cooperates with industry: together with car manufacturer BMW, the team is researching whether sensors that operate while a person is driving a car are capable of detecting heart problems at an early stage.

Every tumour is different

More than half a million people in Germany develop cancer every year – and every case is individual. This is precisely where the Center for Personalized Medicine – Oncology at Hamburg-Eppendorf University Medical Center (UKE) comes in. Drawing on both computer-assisted high-tech diagnostics and human teamwork, students learn early in their training that every person is different – in their illnesses, too. 

“We decode the tumour-specific genetic material and search for one or more weak points,” explains oncologist Maximilian Christopeit. “If we target these therapeutically, we can successfully treat the tumour.” 

Robots in the operating theatre

From health informatics to the master’s programme “AI in Biomedicine”: at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), several departments are preparing students for the medicine of the future. Students learn in a practical environment – alongside doctors, computer scientists and engineers.

Researchers at the university are developing robots that autonomously control the camera inside the abdomen in the operating theatre using AI support – allowing the surgeon to keep both hands free. In future, the assistant robot Aurora is intended to independently recognise which materials are needed and bring them to the operating table. Professor Dirk Wilhelm, a surgeon at TUM’s Klinikum rechts der Isar, still prefers human assistants. But, as he says: “If I have a staff shortage, this allows me to reduce staffing needs effectively and deploy people where they are needed more urgently.”