Special Circumstances
The clinical internship year is a very time-intensive period of study, which is predominantly clinical-practical and takes about 40 hours per week. Special and, in many cases, unplannable circumstances in the private sphere can complicate the clinical internship year and present you with additional challenges. Not every situation can be easily solved, but we will make every effort to meet individual concerns within the given possibilities. In particular,
- Pregnant women and students with children,
- Students who are caring for relatives,
- students with disabilities or chronic illnesses, and
- students with severe acute illness
can make use of the offers of the Faculty of Medicine to promote the compatibility of studies and private situation. Further information on the requirements and evidence necessary for this can be found here.
Working on a dissertation, living close to a hospital, a strong desire to work in a specific specialty later on, or similar arguments are not reasons that justify special support!Students who are pregnant or become pregnant during the clinical internship year, please see the information at the bottom of this page.
If the requirements are met, the following options can be taken:
When allocating clinical internship years, you can select hospitals and subjects that are suitable for you and secure them for yourself even before the general online allocation. To do this, you compile a watch list with your desired places in your personal account on the CIY portal and apply for a hardship case there at the same time. In doing so, you must select the reason for your application from a predefined list and support it with suitable evidence (see Studying in Special Life Situations). The evidence must be received by the Dean of Studies Office by mail or e-mail in the area of study organization (Q3 / M3) by the deadline. Copies of the required documents will suffice. The schedule for online submission, including the respective deadlines, can be viewed here. If the deadline is missed, no priority placement will be given!
If you wish to take an elective subject at the UKD that allocates the clinical internship year places via its own application and selection procedure (General Medicine, Anesthesiology, (Clinical) Pharmacology, (Clinical) Forensic Medicine), you must participate despite your special life situation. Please refer to the instructions for this.
In consultation with the study organization (Q3 / M3) and after approval by the LPA, the clinical internship year can be interrupted for a maximum of two years after completion of a tertial. To do this, you report to the Dean of Studies and submit suitable evidence of the reason for your interruption. We will submit an application to the LPA on your behalf, and you (and we) will receive a decision from them. Before you continue your clinical internship year after the interruption, please contact us early so that we can discuss and organize the last months of your training together.Please note that in the case of an interruption lasting longer than two years, tertials already completed can no longer be taken into account. In this case, the tertial(s) concerned must be taken again with one of the next clinical internship years. Tertials that have been discontinued in the meantime cannot be recognized on a pro rata basis either. The affected tertial must be repeated under these circumstances.
It is open to all students, subject to available places, to complete the clinical internship year part-time with 50 or 75 percent of the weekly training time. This will extend the total duration of the clinical internship year accordingly. If you wish to make use of this option, please contact the staff in the study organization department (Q3 / M3) as early as possible, but no later than two weeks before the start of online enrollment. For applications that reach us later, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to implement your request. Part-time models other than those mentioned above are not possible.
If you decide to complete your clinical internship year part-time at 75 percent, your average weekly hours will decrease from 40 to 30 hours. This increases the duration of the clinical internship year from 48 weeks to 64 weeks (21 weeks per compulsory tertial, 22 weeks for the elective tertial).
If you decide to complete your clinical internship year part-time at 50 percent, your average weekly hours will decrease from 40 to 20 hours. This increases the duration of the clinical internship year from 48 weeks to 96 weeks (32 weeks per tertial).
In both cases, the part-time form will be noted on the certificates issued to you at the end of each tertial by the relevant institute or clinic.
In special cases, it may be considered whether you complete only one or two tertials of your clinical internship year on a part-time basis. However, this requires a special justification.
No generally binding statement can be made by the Dean of Studies regarding the weekly working hours for the two possible part-time variants. This depends on the respective hospital or subject and must be clarified with them in advance. The respective PJ coordinator and subject representatives will decide together with you which time models make sense in the respective institution. Please note that the number of absences is not increased by a part-time clinical internship year. The general absence regulations apply. In addition, depending on the part-time model, there may be waiting times after completion of the clinical internship year until the third section of the medical examination.
The Maternity Protection Act was revised in 2017 and came into force in its amended version on 01.01.2018. If you are pregnant as a student or become pregnant during the clinical internship year, you are obliged to report this immediately. Please contact the Student Service Center (SSC) at HHU and also inform the staff in the area of study organization (Q3 / M3). At the SSC, your legal protection periods (six weeks before the expected date of birth and eight or 12 weeks after delivery) are calculated; in addition, the notification of your pregnancy to the Düsseldorf district government is made from there.
As a rule, you can continue to participate in the clinical internship year without major restrictions. However, HHU is obligated to prepare an individual risk assessment for each pregnant student and to take protective measures in case of possible hazards. The assessments are prepared by the responsible physicians in the institutes, clinics or in the private practices, and are coordinated by the Office of the Dean of Studies. Despite or in addition to this risk assessment, we recommend that you contact the UKD's occupational health service for advice and to inform the physicians with whom you work about your pregnancy.