The new elective 5th semester of the study programme in medicine prepares future doctors for coming challenges facing the healthcare system, including an international perspective, digitisation and more senior citizens. The programme has been developed in close cooperation with regions and hospitals in the Capital Region of Denmark and Region Zealand.

The study programme in medicine at the University of Copenhagen now adapts several branches of the programme to the future needs of the healthcare system. In the new elective 5th semester the students can now choose from a great range of courses within specialisation, research, digitisation, innovation and internationalisation. It will prepare and enable them to meet the demands of the public hospital service, private companies and the pharmaceutical industry.

Today a 70-year-old citizen uses the hospital services twice as much as younger citizens, and in 2050 the number of 80-year-olds will have tripled. Modern forms of treatment are becoming more and more digital and technically demanding, while the need for international cooperation on handling antibiotic resistance, global epidemics and other international health challenges increases. Last but not least the pharmaceutical industry demands more highly specialised candidates for the development of new medicines, which is one of Denmark’s main exports.

The country’s oldest and largest study programme in medicine has therefore chosen to upskill the candidates for the future healthcare system with international challenges, digitisation and more senior citizens.

‘As doctors and researchers our graduates must strive to promote health and high quality of life and to devise solutions for a healthcare system at the highest international level. We are giving our students the freedom to immerse themselves and test possible career paths, thereby maturing and qualifying the choice of career they are about to make. In the course of the programme they will learn to master modern forms of treatment and new technology and to meet patients and relatives with empathy’, said Dean of the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences Ulla Wewer.

These weeks a number of students of medicine are starting an elective 5th-semester course – a self-elected course focussing either on research, international commitment or a specialty.

Traditionally, doctors only get a chance to ‘sniff’ at possible specialties after completing their clinical basic training, which typically takes five years. However, the new elective 5th semester now gives them a chance to try out potential career paths at an earlier point in their training, enabling them to make qualified decisions when choosing a specialist programme.

‘If we want to try our strength against research, this is an excellent opportunity. If we want to explore a specialty, we get a chance to act at resident level with in-depth continuity of care. And we can also choose a clinical stay abroad. I think this will make it easier for me to explore and understand my career opportunities as a doctor’, said Andrea Maier, a student of medicine at the University of Copenhagen.

These weeks a number of students start a course in the Capital Region of Denmark and Region Zealand, who together have developed more than 30 specialty-focussed courses conducted at hospitals and clinics. The elective 5th-semester courses have been developed by the University of Copenhagen in collaboration with fiery souls from 30 units within eye disorders, cross-sectoral continuity of care, special examinations, child and adolescent psychiatry and geriatrics, and it is vital to the future healthcare system that the students soon after graduating are able to contribute with expertise to an everyday workday involving many professional, technical and ethical challenges.

‘We need doctors who both have solid professional competences and a strong sense of judgement to solve f