The MHH comments on the current ZEIT report.
No evidence of malpractice: MHH rejects the accusation of inadequately trained trauma surgeons. Copyright: Karin Kaiser/MHH
Following an anonymous complaint, the Hanover Public Prosecutor's Office launched an investigation into the Director of the Clinical Department of Trauma Surgery at Hannover Medical School (MHH) and six medical specialists in November 2025. The allegation was that false certificates of experience had been certified for submission to the Medical Association of Lower Saxony. In the course of the investigation, surgical reports from the past ten years and extensive other materials were confiscated. MHH cooperated fully with the public prosecutor's office at all times during the investigation in order to help clarify the facts. The Hanover public prosecutor's office did not identify any criminal conduct, and at the end of January 2026, the Hanover public prosecutor's office closed all investigations against MHH employees due to a lack of suspicion.
Medical specialists are qualified
For MHH, caring for patients and their medical treatment is a top priority. For this reason, internal audits were carried out in parallel with the investigations. There were no indications that the specialists involved in the Clinical Department of Trauma Surgery had committed any treatment errors. The specialists had already begun their further training before the head of the clinic took up his post in 2021. They have all passed their specialist examinations after more than six years of further training and are appropriately qualified. A total of 25 employees currently hold specialist qualifications. Medical care in the Clinical Department of Trauma Surgery is subject to continuous external quality assurance, as in the other MHH clinics, and is carried out according to high professional standards.
It is true that the current catalog of services to be provided in specialist training for orthopaedics and trauma surgery is extensive. The content of specialist training in Germany is determined by the medical self-administration. Further medical training is not based solely on the numerical recording of individual operations. According to the further training regulations, the decisive factors are the continuous assessment of professional competence, the responsibility of the physicians authorized to provide further training and the passing of the specialist examination at the Medical Association.
Innovative amputation medicine at the MHH
The supposed lack of expertise in the care of patients following leg amputation described in the ZEIT article does not accurately reflect the clinical care provided at the MHH. Osseointegration ("endo-exo-implantation") is only one procedure in amputation surgery for selected patients. It is one of the most invasive and high-risk procedures in this field, which requires careful indication and consideration of alternative treatment methods. Since 2021, a highly specialized successor has been recruited at the MHH who, in contrast to the "luminary" mentioned in the article, pursues a differentiated, step-by-step and less invasive therapeutic approach.
The current therapeutic approach is based on less risky and less invasive innovative operations in the interests of patients. It is therefore incorrect to conclude from the lower number of primary osseointegration procedures since 2021 that this area of care has lost importance or even been abandoned. The MHH firmly rejects as misleading the ZEIT report that the MHH's trauma surgery department appears to hardly perform certain procedures due to the departure of individual physicians.
Transparency and Data Protection
The university is in contact with the Medical Association of Lower Saxony and the German Medical Association in order to continuously improve the quality and documentation of medical training and to make it transparent and safe for trainees, training supervisors and Examination Boards. Irrespective of the investigations by the public prosecutor's office, which have now been discontinued, MHH Data Protection is continuously reviewing the access regulations for personal data in order to protect employees and patients from unauthorized access that is not related to treatment at MHH.
Text: Administrative Unit Communications