Students
The trauma surgery tradition founded by Prof. Harald Tscherne as the first university trauma surgery in Germany and continued by Prof. Christian Krettek from 2000 to 2021 has become widely known as the "Hannover School".
Prof. Stephan Sehmisch has been Head of the Trauma Surgery Clinical Department since October 2021.
You will have the opportunity to take your first steps in trauma surgery in this tradition by familiarizing yourself with traumatological syndromes and cases in lectures, seminars and bedside teaching.
Emergency Medicine internships are run by members of the Department, in which you will learn how to provide first aid to injured or seriously ill patients.
The UAPP is an app-based platform via which individualized courses are offered by any lecturer from any discipline, either as a regularly recurring course (over one or more 45-minute learning units) or at short notice. Interested students can book these courses individually.
The UApp was developed by a team of dedicated employees led by Professor Steffens and has since received top-class awards.
The Department of Trauma Surgery offers well over 300 teaching units per month in this way (ZNA work shadowing, ICU ward rounds, O.R. work shadowing, participation in various special consultation hours, X-ray image analysis seminar, etc.).
Download UAPP ("MHH UAPP"):
Modules 2025 (Feb - Dec)
We offer an elective course in trauma rescue, in which theoretical and practical trauma management skills are taught and case scenarios are simulated over three days of 9 hours each. Thanks to the cooperation with the City of Hanover's Fire and Rescue Station 5 (FRW 5) and the Johanniter Academy Hanover (SAN Arena), students can experience particularly realistic rescue scenarios in a protected environment and learn important skills for working in everyday clinical practice.
Together with the MHH SkillsLab, the Training Academy for Nursing offers a unique nationwide project on safe behavior in the operating theatre: The Dance with Purity - Fit for the OR, across borders. Here, OTA trainees teach medical students how to prepare for the OR and how to behave correctly in the OR.
In addition to these particularly exciting activities, there is also the somewhat less exciting but still very helpful seminar on "Writing medical letters". Here, students can experience and learn how to write reports during normal Clinical Department operations over a period of 2 weeks.
Course of the seminar at UCH
Routing sheet for the "Writing physician's letters" seminar
The first real patient contact often takes place in the clinical examination courses. Here, students are introduced to the history taking and clinical examination techniques for injuries at the patient's bedside. For particularly interested students, we also offer electives in trauma surgery. The spectrum of electives offered ranges from clinical rounds to surgical exercises on artificial bone, from sonography courses to multimedia applications in trauma surgery, from plaster courses to the development of algorithms. Quite a few research papers and doctoral theses have been written during these intensive trauma surgery courses.
Throughout the year, there are always 3-5 students in their practical year. During the lecture-free period, there are also 3-4 trainees in the Clinical Department who receive their training here.
Here you can find current job advertisements for doctoral theses in Trauma Surgery and other Clinical Departments of the MHH (Login via ILIAS)
- 2 telephones for PJ students
- Online lectures / ILIAS
- Additional video lectures on interesting special subjects / ILIAS
- Collection of useful links on our Students website
- Personalized written information and personal welcome by a mentor for all PJ students on the first day at UCH
- PJ advanced training (Friday 3 pm in the outpatients clinic)
- Weekly offers via UApp MHH (ATZ Visite / PJ training)
- Prospective reliable scheduling of lecturers seminar / UaK in the UCH duty roster
- Active request for personal feedback on UCH teaching as part of the block / practical theoretical examinations (at the end of MSE_P_401 surgery, urology, orthopaedics)
- Close coordination with the other lecturers
- Provision of a complete suture / knot training set for current PJ students
- Short suture / knot course as part of the weekly PJ training (Friday 3 pm / outpatients clinic)
- Systematic feedback loop on the quality of seminars and UaK (UCH) vs. student participation in the events (via respective quintile speaker / UCH lecturer)
- Involvement of external former lecturers in teaching via MS Teams
- Provision of PowerPoint material for lecturers
- Systematized X-ray image teaching archive for use by lecturers
Useful links:
https://www.medizintogo.de/ - Continuing education always and everywhere
https://chirurginnen.com/ - Network for women working in surgery
https://surgeryreference.aofoundation.org/ - Online reference work of the AO for the treatment of fractures
Pedirad - Learning modules for pediatric radiology
SpringerMedicine - Treatment pathways
B.Braun: Suture and knot techniques (link)
ethicon: Surgical knot technique (PDF)
ethicon: Did you know... - Information on suture material (PDF)
Media library of the DGCh - Student educational films
Media library of the DGCh - Trauma surgery
VuMedi (international platform for educational videos from many medical specialties, registration required)
OTC Germany - The platform for various digital content in the medical field of osteosynthesis
Useful apps:
Visible body (anatomy)
Anatomy / Grey (anatomy)
Orthorad (X-ray image assessment / especially child skeleton)
Manual AGNNW (Emergency Medicine)
First Aid (Emergency Medicine)
POSSUM (score for perioperative morbidity / mortality probability)
FORTA (pharmacotherapy for geriatric patients)
AO Surgery Reference (trauma surgery / implants)
AMBOSS (general medical knowledge)
Doccheck (medical lexicon)
The MHH's Department of Trauma Surgery is one of Germany's leading departments in the field of trauma surgery. The foundation for this was the establishment of the first Chair of Trauma Surgery in 1970. Under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Harald Tscherne, who is still recognized worldwide today, Hannover was able to take on a pioneering role in the areas of research, teaching and treatment of injured patients at an early stage. His successor, Prof. Dr. Christian Krettek, continued this tradition with great success from 2000 to 2021.
Prof. Dr. Dr. Stephan Sehmisch has been Head of the Trauma Surgery Clinical Department at MHH since 2021.
The MHH is a "supramaximal care" hospital, i.e. equipped with all medical care facilities and, if necessary, also able to deal with a mass casualty incident. The Trauma Surgery Department plays a special role in this by managing the emergency ambulance, the Christoph 4 rescue helicopter and the interdisciplinary emergency room, giving you the unique opportunity to experience the full spectrum of trauma surgery in our department. The offer is rounded off by 3 ultra-modern operating theaters and a trauma surgery intensive care unit with 8 ventilation beds.
As a student, in addition to helping with the initial treatment of patients in the emergency room and assisting with exciting operations, you can also ride in our emergency ambulance* and thus gain initial experience in emergency medical care and the rescue service. If you are interested, you can also gain an insight into trauma surgery intensive care medicine. This gives you the unique opportunity to accompany seriously injured patients from the ambulance via the trauma room to the operating theater and on to the intensive care unit in addition to "normal" trauma surgery patients.
In addition to consultation hours for shoulder, hip, knee and spinal surgery, we also offer special consultation hours for e.g. tumor surgery as well as hand, foot and rheumatism surgery.
Students and visiting physicians from all over the world regularly visit our Clinical Department.
If you are a student of Human medicine and are also interested in a clinical traineeship at our Clinical Department, simply contact us by e-mail. You will soon find a sample schedule for your clinical traineeship on this page. This can of course be adapted to your own interests and preferences.
If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us:
