FAQ

The entry "Dr." for professional doctorates, so-called minor doctorates or other university titles are not permitted (GMBl 2009, §4 para. 1.3). This applies, for example, to the "Dr. med. univ." (Austria), the "dr. med." (Hungary) or the Iranian doctoral degree.

Note: Information on the use of foreign degrees, titles and designations can be found in the corresponding leaflet of the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts Baden-Württemberg (MWK).

Yes, the doctoral regulations do not require that you have studied in Heidelberg. The condition is that you have a doctoral supervisor who is habilitated at our faculty and that other admission requirements are met.

As of March 30, 2018, the amendment to the State University Act of Baden-Württemberg came into effect. According to Section 38 (5), "Persons who have been accepted as doctoral candidates shall be enrolled in accordance with Section 60, Paragraph 1, Sentence 1, Letter b; this shall not apply to accepted doctoral candidates who are employed full-time at the university if they have previously declared in writing to the Rectorate that they do not wish to be enrolled."

In this context, we draw your attention to the matriculation requirement. The concrete measures to implement the legal requirement at Heidelberg University are in preparation.

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The "Heidelberg Faculty of Medicine" and the "Mannheim Faculty of Medicine" are two independent faculties of the University of Heidelberg with joint doctoral regulations. All additional regulations regarding the procedure as well as the documents to be submitted may differ from each other. The faculty at which your doctoral supervisor is habilitated is responsible for your doctoral procedure.

If your supervisor changes jobs but remains habilitated at our faculty, he/she retains the right to supervise doctoral candidates. However, if his/her faculty affiliation expires (e.g., upon acceptance of a call), all doctoral candidates already registered can still be supervised to completion through our faculty, but no new candidates can be accepted.

It should be considered that a change of position and the associated requirements at the new workplace as well as the spatial distance often make supervision more difficult. Therefore, it should be clarified internally whether an amicable change of supervisor within the department is desirable or sensible.

Yes, the doctoral regulations allow the submission of the dissertation in German or English, a special application for this is not required.

An exclusively proper citation is not sufficient; the permission of the respective publisher or journal must be obtained, and fees may also have to be paid. For students and doctoral candidates, there is sometimes a simplified procedure.

If the dissertation is to be submitted to our faculty, PromO and regulations of our faculty apply. This means in detail:

• The doctoral supervisor must be habilitated at our faculty (§ 4, Abs. 1 PromO), a cooperation with an external institution is possible under this condition.
• Please note that animal experimentation permits and ethics votes must also be submitted for dissertations prepared abroad, depending on the language of the document, along with an official translation if necessary.
• A declaration of the external institute director must be submitted, which allows the candidate to submit the results obtained there as part of a dissertation at the Medical Faculty of Hedidelberg (§ 4, Para. 4 PromO).
• The official supervisor (= habilitated at our faculty) together with the clinic/institute will appear on the finished dissertation. The cooperating institution will be mentioned on the title page, the co-supervisor will be acknowledged in the acknowledgement; he/she will not appear as the doctoral supervisor.

You can only earn a doctorate once with one degree. This also applies if the doctorate or a corresponding equivalent (PhD) was obtained abroad. If you have already obtained a doctorate /PhD, a second doctorate at our faculty is only possible with another degree, e.g.:

• You have completed a medical and a dental degree. This allows you to obtain once the "Dr. med." and another time the "Dr. med. dent." doctorate.
• You have completed a university diploma and a (dental) medical degree. In this case, the diploma entitles you to the doctorate "Dr. sc. hum." and the (dental) medical examination entitles you to a doctorate to the degree of" Dr. med."

A doctoral degree acquired abroad which is awarded merely as a certificate of completion of studies (a so-called professional doctorate such as the Austrian "Dr. med. univ. " or the Hungarian"dr. med.") does not count as a doctorate.

Thus, the degree of a "Medical Doctor" is also not to be confused with the German title of a "Dr. med.". While the "Medical Doctor" as a degree is comparable to the German medical state examination, our medical doctorate would be translated as "Doctor of Medicine".

No. The PhD is a title that, like the doctorate, must be explicitly awarded to you. It may only be used when the university abroad officially awards the title or allows you to use it. It is therefore at the discretion of the university abroad to classify the doctoral title acquired here as equivalent to the PhD.

It is expressly pointed out that the title PhD may not be used either here or abroad without having been awarded to you personally, as this constitutes a misuse of title according to § 132a StGB.

As a general rule, titles may only be used abroad in the form in which they were awarded and which can be verified by a certificate; there are no "translations" here.

The MEDISS team is the first point of contact in cases of conflict regarding the medical doctoral thesis.

Further contact persons:

• Chairman of the doctoral committee Dr. med (dent.): Prof. Dr. Hugo Marti
• Ombudspersons for doctoral students at Heidelberg University: They see themselves as independent and confidential advisors and mediators to whom both doctoral students and supervisors can turn.

After your official acceptance as a PhD student, you will receive a registration link for the MEDISS platform within two weeks. Please use this link promptly to complete your profile. By saving the data you are registered in the MEDISS program.

Yes, as soon as you have been accepted as a doctoral student by the faculty, you will automatically be sent a registration link for the MEDISS platform. Please note that this may take up to two weeks. This link can only be used once and cannot be sent again for technical reasons, so please complete the registration without interruption. Registration is necessary because the platform is used to regulate course registration and recognition.

In any case, you must prove that you have successfully participated in the MEDISS doctoral program when submitting your dissertation to the doctoral office. If you do not register for the program at the beginning of your doctoral studies, the submission of your dissertation may be delayed.

Approximately two weeks after your acceptance as a doctoral student at the Heidelberg Medical Faculty, you will receive notification of your acceptance into the MEDISS doctoral program and the associated requirements. However, you can also contact the MEDISS team before official acceptance to find out about the requirements.

Yes, in order to receive credit for courses, those courses must have contribute to your scientific competence or scientific exchange. Courses which were part of the compulsory curriculum of a (previous) study program are not credited. Only additionally attended elective courses will be credited. The crediting is done via the MEDISS platform. If you do not have an account on the MEDISS platform, the crediting will still be done via the office of the MEDISS doctoral program.

Yes, the prerequisite for the crediting of courses is that they impart scientific competencies or serve the purpose of scientific exchange. Courses which were part of the compulsory curriculum of a (previous) study program are not credited. Only additionally attended elective courses will be credited. The crediting is done via the MEDISS platform. If you do not have an account on the MEDISS platform, the crediting will still be done via the office of the MEDISS doctoral program.

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Courses of other structured doctoral programs can be credited for the MEDISS doctoral program. However, please note that you must fulfill all requirements of the MEDISS doctoral program before submitting your dissertation. Participation in another program does not release you from the requirements of the MEDISS doctoral program.

When you submit your dissertation to the faculty, you need a certificate from the MEDISS Doctoral Program that you have fulfilled all requirements. This certificate will be issued to you by the program office.

As you can see from the course list, there are various providers for possible courses. Please contact the respective contact person for registration. Cancellation must also be clarified with the respective organizer.

Registration for courses offered by the MEDISS office can be done on the platform. If there is no access to the platform, the registration will be handled by mail.

A cancellation of already confirmed places is possible during the current registration period on the platform. After the expiration of the registration period, the deregistration will be handled by mail via the MEDISS office. Please note that a short-term cancellation without a medical certificate leads to a 3-month disadvantageous consideration for further course bookings via the platform.

In case of unexcused absence in courses of the MEDISS office from 10 minutes after the start of the course, your course registration will lose its validity. If you are late, please contact the MEDISS team in this regard before the start of the course.

A login to the MEDISS platform is already possible as a student with your university ID and corresponding password. With a student account you can only access limited functions of the platform.

After official acceptance as a doctoral student by the doctoral committee, you will automatically receive an email with a registration link for the MEDISS platform, as well as an information email about the requirements of the MEDISS doctoral program. Please note that this may take up to three weeks. For registration, you will need your University ID and the corresponding password. Please register promptly on the MEDISS platform after receiving the registration link, as the link cannot be recreated. Once you have saved the data, you are registered in the MEDISS program and, as a doctoral student, you can use the advanced features of the platform (course booking, application for recognition, transcript of records).

If you do not have a Uni-ID, please contact the MEDISS office after receiving the registration link.