Pupils from the Max-Eyth-Schule visit the university and get a taste of lectures

Trauma surgery and abdominal surgery - that was on the timetable of an eleventh grade class at the Max-Eyth-Schule. The students attended a block of lectures on the Physician Assistant - Medical Assistance degree programme at Bremerhaven University of Applied Sciences. The aim was to find out what the programme deals with, get a taste of student life and gain an impression of the course. "Most people only know a medical degree programme. We want to know what the difference is. Maybe Plan B to study Physician Assistant will become Plan A for some students," says Nadin Zeidler, teacher of the school class. The class is specialising in health and care.

Fractions in a different way than at school
The Max Eyth School's visit to Bremerhaven University of Applied Sciences began with a lecture on general fracture theory. In medicine, a fracture is a broken bone. Nicole Schwieger, scientific-technical employee and trained Physician Assistant herself, went into the classification, the aetiology, i.e. the causes, the forms of fractures and the basic principles of fracture treatment. The students and pupils of the Max-Eyth-Schule were shown images and X-rays of various fractures. She showed comparative images of the fractures before and after treatment as well as the malpositions on a skeleton model. She also gave the correct names of the bone parts. She then demonstrated orthoses, medical aids that are applied to the outside of the body and immobilise the affected area. The pupils were allowed to put an arm orthosis on the students. Eleventh-grader Matilda Ahrens tried her luck: "I would like to help people later on and would like to study medicine, as I come from a family of doctors myself." She found it particularly interesting to see what the fractures look like and what happens in a lecture like this. Her classmate Sóley Kuwahara would rather go into research later on and favours studying biology. "I recognised some Latin names and like the link between what we have already learned at school and what we are learning today."

A real, literal insight
After a short break, we continued with the second lecture block on the topic of gallbladder diseases. This time, Prof Dr Karina Schleimer, head of the Physician Assistant - Medical Assistance course, gave a lecture. She used diagrams to show the position of the various components of a gallbladder. After the technical terms and causes of a gallbladder blockage or inflammation were explained, a real surgical instructional video was shown. In the video, pupils and students were able to see how a gallbladder is removed. It was very quiet in the seminar room while the video was running. After the lecture, Nicole Schwieger accompanied the class to the in-house skills lab. In addition to various lifelike dummies, this also offers a fully equipped operating theatre.

The tasks of a medical assistant
Once in the skills lab, Nicole Schwieger showed the class around and explained the various areas in which physician assistants can work: "Physician assistants take on delegable medical tasks. Above all, they can take over ward management in the hospital, but they can also assist in the operating theatre. They can also carry out minor procedures independently under supervision. With the help of additional training, they can later also treat chronic wounds. The advantage of Physician Assistants is that their working hours are regulated and there is usually no on-call duty or similar. This allows them to combine work and family life. You can also be deployed anywhere," explained the scientific-technical employee.

"It moved me to tears"
Student mentor Hicret Sakinmaz, who is studying Physician Assistant - Medical Assistance in her fourth semester, showed the students the station where blood sampling is practised. Here you can feel the pulse on a hand model and practise taking blood on arm models. "It's quite normal not to hit the veins the first time. But you get better with time," says Hicret Sakinmaz. After the tour of the skills lab, the student mentor talked a little about her own experiences from everyday life as a prospective medical assistant: "I recently attended a caesarean section. That was really overwhelming and fascinating and it moved me to tears." Hicret Sakinmaz trained as a medical assistant before starting her studies. "That helped me a lot to practise dealing with patients," says the student.

Application phase for Physician Assistant - medical assistance at Bremerhaven University of Applied Sciences is underway
After Hicret Sakinmaz and Nicole Schwieger were available to answer the students' questions, Nadin Zeidler's class came to a positive conclusion. "I'm still wavering between medicine and this," admitted eleventh-grader Marina Ebert. "The day gave a rough but good insight into the degree programme and student life," she added. The cooperation between the Max-Eyth-Schule and Bremerhaven University of Applied Sciences has been in place since 2011 and includes visits to the annual campus day as well as joint projects.
Physician Assistant - Medical Assistance is an admission-restricted degree programme. The application phase for the winter semester 2024/25 is currently underway and interested students can apply until 15 July to start their studies in October. The degree programme consists of eight semesters and has a practical focus. "The first real clinical contact takes place just three weeks after the start of the programme," says Nicole Schwieger.

(Text: Jurina Kleemeyer and Isabelle Epplé)