Engagement for climate and healthcare
The light is subdued, and here and there a whisper can be heard in the round room designed in black. By the walls there are twelve small tables with laptops and telephones, and through the large glass panels can be seen the same number of surrounding “treatment rooms”, each about eight square metres in size. Teaching staff from the Medical Faculty concentrate on observing students in these rooms, noting down how they deal with “case studies” – in other words, how they handle patients, record their medical histories and make diagnoses. The windows are one-way mirrors to prevent any disturbances. The trainee doctors have to deal with six cases in a short period of time and under conditions which are as realistic as possible. This place bears the name “Limette” (the German acronym stands for “Learning centre for individualised medical training and development”) and is located on Malmedyweg in Münster. The people whom the students have to treat are all actors.
In the middle of the observation room stands Franziska Köster. She looks relaxed – everything is going fine. This morning she is a student, a co-lecturer and an organiser all rolled into one. Together with some of her fellow-students, the 25-year-old has developed simulation training which focuses on the consequences of climate change for people’s health – a topic which has received hardly any attention so far in students’ medical training. Mental stress, heat-induced circulation problems, or increased infections due to climate change: the wide range of patterns of illness require medical staff to have not only broad medical knowledge but also the courage to overcome their own uncertainties when they have to act in a patient’s best interests in a situation which is not entirely clear. “I am convinced that for us, in our later careers, the consequences of climate change will be very relevant,” Köster says – which makes it all the more important, she adds, for medical students to be prepared for it. “Many of us in our generation find climate change frightening,” she says. Sit back and do nothing? That’s not her philosophy.
Franziska Köster likes to spend her free time surrounded by nature or engaging in unusual sports such as canoe polo or acrobatics. While she was still at school she did voluntary work in her local church parish, and after her Abitur exams she did a voluntary year in the “Work and Ecology” environmental education project in her hometown of Bremen. “I’ve always liked getting involved and thinking up projects for children and young people,” she says.
Shortly after she begins her medical studies, friends introduce her to the “Health for Future (HFF) action group, an association of people from the healthcare sector engaged in climate protection. She goes on demonstrations and joins in protest vigils. “Doctors enjoy a high level of trust in our society,” she says, “and we need to be aware of this role we have.” In the Münster section of HFF she is involved in the working group for teaching. Everything revolves around the question of when climate change can be a part of medical studies. “We didn’t want a lecture in which students learn everything by heart and then often forget it again,” she recalls. “Rather, we wanted to find a format which was cool and could be put into practice.” Away from the action group, she and fellow-student Kyra Lilier, along with three more women students, then contact the medical director of “Limette”, Dr. Helmut Ahrens. “He thought it was a great idea and first explained to us in a workshop how some practical training could develop out of our initial ideas,” she recounts with a laugh. “We had no idea about how to teach.” In the winter semester 2022/23 a pilot project bearing the name “Klima-Limette” gets through its final rehearsal and, after short and intensive preparations, succeeds in being incorporated as an optional subject into the teaching programme at the Medical Faculty. The simulation of case studies also includes an eLearning unit and an evaluation seminar.
In November 2023, the German Association of Health Insurance Funds awards the Future Prize to the project, thus acknowledging the importance of the initiative. Franziska Kösters will soon be taking her final examination and then embarking on her year of practical training, and her greatest wish is that “Klima-Limette” is continued after the team who initiated it have graduated. She herself is not yet sure which direction she herself will be going in. Anaesthesia or general practice are exciting options, she says. “Basically, everyone hopes they stay healthy. I’d like to make my contribution to that.”
Julia Harth
This article is from the brochure "Twelve months, twelve people", published in February 2024.
Download the entire brochure as a pdf file
To the other articles in the brochure "Twelve months, twelve people".