Prize money for Medical Ethics training

The new Continuing Education Development Award – CEDA for short – worth 70,000 euros goes to the CAS Medical Ethics project. This training course may be taken by professionals while they are working and is aimed at health services management. It is meant to enable them to analyse and deal with the growing ethical challenges in the area of patient welfare, doctors’ views on their own role, technical progress, and economization. This academic training is concluded with an internationally-recognized Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS). It fills a gap in the education spectrum of southwestern Germany - there is nothing like it in southern Baden nor the bordering region of northern Switzerland.

In April 2019 the team headed by Dr. Philippe Merz at Freiburg’s Thales-Akademie für Wirtschaft und Philosophie will launch the new course. Prof. Dr. Hans-Helmuth Gander, director of the Husserl Archive and Dean of Humanities, and Prof. Dr. Christoph Borner, Institute of Molecular Medicine and Cell Research, are representing the University of Freiburg in the project. Furtwangen University is represented by Prof. Dr. Ulrike Salat, Faculty of Medical and Life Sciences, and Prof. Dr. Folker Wenzel, Faculty of Medical and Life Sciences and Dean of Studies for Technical Physician.

The CEDA is awarded by the cooperative project Weiter in Südbaden/ Moving ahead in southern Baden. The University of Freiburg and Furtwangen University are jointly organizing the project; eight institutions of higher education in the Region Upper Rhine-Schwarzwald are taking part. The aim is to create a further training network to pool the partners’ resources and to raise awareness of the program. The Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts Baden-Württemberg and the European Union’s Social Fund are sponsoring the project from January 2016 until the end of 2020.

The prize is aimed at projects which establish or expand multidisciplinary and higher education training schemes. There are two main criteria: It must be possible to combine elements of further training so that the spectrum of courses on offer becomes wider, and there should be uniform certificates to ensure transparency, comparability, and high quality standards. Both these things are reflected in the requirements of the phased qualifications in the Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS) and Diploma of Advanced Studies (DAS). All members of “Weiter in Südbaden” can apply for the award – either as individuals or as a team. Seven projects were submitted in 2017; the next call for applications is planned for 2018.

Statements

“We are delighted that so many good ideas were developed in the CEDA application. In choosing the CAS Medical Ethics, the judges decided in favor of an interdisciplinary project encompassing a number of institutions and which has great social relevance.”

Professor Dr. July Besters-Dilger, Vice-President for Academic Affairs, University of Freiburg

“This award supports a multi-institution project which contributes to the spectrum of further training in the region and expanding the future-oriented subject of Medical Ethics. This cooperation will enable Furtwangen University and the University of Freiburg to work more closely together in further training, pooling competence, and attracting attention to all the joint courses on offer.

Professor Dr. Michael Lederer, Vice-President of International Affairs & Executive Education, Furtwangen University

Information on “Weiter in Südbaden”