Clinical Traineeship Project Medical University Innsbruck 2025

Abstract:

During one month of clinical rotations at teaching hospitals of our partner universities in Asia, students can experience different medical training methods and get an insight into a different health care system, methods of treatments and disease patterns.

© Hanna Klampfl

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Implementation Period:

02/2025 – 09/2025

Project:

As this project is not a traditional research project, but is instead aimed at supporting clinical rotations at partner universities in the field of human medicine, it is not always possible to respond adequately to the questions/topics briefly given for the final report, but the report aims to do so correspondingly.

The project focused on administering outgoing student mobility for students in human medicine, who had the opportunity of undertaking a clinical elective at one of eight partner institutions across Asia. By this, the project also aimed at strengthening general collaboration between our universities and supporting intercultural and clinical exchange.

A total of 15 students were able to undertake a 4-week-long elective at the following partner universities:

• Chiang Mai University (CMU), Thailand: 2 students
• Chulalongkorn University, Thailand: 2 students
• Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia: 4 students
• Khon Kaen University (KKU), Thailand: 2 students
• Mahidol University, Ramathibodi Hospital: 1 student
• Mahidol University, Tropical Medicine Institute: 1 student
• Suranaree University of Technology (SUT), Thailand: 2 students
• University of Medicine and Pharmacy at HCMT (UMP), Vietnam: 1 student

All electives took place between February and September 2025.

Students were allocated to partner universities taking into account all applications from all participating Austria’s medical universities, including the Medical Universities of Innsbruck, Vienna, and Graz, as well as the Medical Faculty of Johannes Kepler University Linz. Allocation aimed to balance both student preferences in universities and a well-distributed placement of students across partner universities and months.

Four students from the Medical University of Innsbruck (MUI) cancelled their stay after nomination. To mitigate this in future projects, deposit payment will be moved to an earlier stage, specifically after acceptance but before the nomination.

Collaboration with Mahidol University – Tropical Medicine proved challenging due to prolonged communication delays, with responses taking up to several months, and the fact that several nominated students were either not accepted or approved only for shortened two-week periods. Moreover, students had to pay a study fee of approximately €375 despite being officially nominated, and it became evident that nominated students were not treated differently from individuals applying independently via the university’s website. As a result, and following consultations with all participating Austrian medical universities, a joint decision was made to stop offering electives at the Tropical Medicine Institute for the future.

Students’ obligatory narrative experience reports were overall very positive for their overall experience, with the academic/professional benefit being rated 2.9 on a scale from 1 (best) to 5 (worst) in average. All participants stated they would recommend the program. Key benefits reported the exposure to a different healthcare system, encountering disease patterns rarely or never seen in Austria, insights into patient management under varying resource conditions, and differences in hygiene standards and available equipment. Main challenges reported overall referred to language barriers, which hindered clinical interaction and communication.

No publications resulted from this project, as it was not research-based. Although the acceptance of incoming students was not stipulated in the funding contract, the Medical University Innsbruck considers it an important social responsibility and internationalization strategy to also welcome students from our partner institutions. In 2025, a total of 12 incoming students was successfully accommodated at different departments (Chiang Mai University: 1 student, Chulalongkorn University: 1 student, Gadjah Mada University: 5 students, Khon Kaen University: 3 students, Mahidol University – Ramathibodi Hospital: 1 student, Suranaree University of Technology: 1 student).

A comparable follow-up project has already been approved and funded by the ASEA network for implementation in 2026.

It was not until 2025 that students were sent to all the participating partner universities for the first time since post-Covid, which also means that experience reports are available again for the first time after. Not least because of this, but also due to more active promotion of the clinical elective program, there are already more applications than places available for 2026 as to date. It can therefore be assumed that mobility numbers will rise again in the next project.

In addition to facilitating undergraduate mobility, the program also increases the international visibility of our universities in the postgraduate area. For example, it arranges postgraduate visits and observerships. One such visit is scheduled from Chulalongkorn University for March 2026.