Joining to promote young talents: an experience report from the first German Summer School for Obstetrics and Gynaecology for medical students.

Purpose: The Commission for the Promotion of Young Talents of the German Society for Gynaecology and Obstetrics e.V. was founded in 2017, aiming to inspire medical students for a career in obstetrics and gynaecology by developing a concept for the first German Summer School in this field. Here, medical students shall be introduced to this multifaceted specialty and have their interest in it kindled.

Methods: This article reports about the experiences of the first gynaecological summer school which was held at the University Hospital Heidelberg for 2 days in August 2018. The programme included keynote presentations, discussion roundtables and skills-lab training. To assess students' related satisfaction, and to improve future projects, an evaluation survey with seven items and two open-comment questions was given to each participant after the event.

Results: Mostly female students [n (♀) = 37, 93%; n (♂) = 3, 7%] from 15 different medical universities from all over Germany participated. Available places were booked within 1 week. Participants were in their clinical part of their studies between the 5th and 16th semester. The average rating of the event was excellent with 1.1 points (1 = best-5 = worst), while the selection of topics scored lowest marks with an average rating of 1.7 points.

Conclusion: Due to the great success, the high demand and the student's positive evaluation, annual summer schools in obstetrics and gynaecology are planned. Because most of the participating students have shown a high interest and have appropriate education in the domain, the information content of keynote presentations could be increased above basic level in future projects.