Award for MHB founding dean

Potsdam, 12 December 2022

Dipl.-Med. Frank Ullrich Schulz, president of the Brandenburg Medical Association LÄKB, presented the association’s Badge of Honour to Prof. Dr. med. Dieter Nürnberg on 3 December 2022, for services rendered to the medical profession in Brandenburg.

Apart from numerous functions as representative of professional interests, such as secretary of the European Federation of Societies for Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology, vice-president of the pertinent international federation, NGO representative with the WHO and president of the German Ultrasound Federation DEGUM, Prof. Nürnberg formed part of the group who established the Brandenburg Medical School Theodor Fontane from 2010 to 2014 and served as its founding dean until 2016.

LÄKB president Dipl.-Med. Frank Ullrich Schulz praised the concept of studies created under Nürnberg’s leadership as innovative, science-based and close to practice: “At an early stage, the Brandenburg medical model curriculum introduced reforms to better prepare prospective physicians for their future activities; in 2020 the Federal Ministry of Education and Science BMBF took up these ideas to initiate its nationwide Master plan for medical studies. The MHB has thus made a major contribution to ensuring the provision of healthcare in Brandenburg. The Brandenburg Medical Association is greatly indebted to Prof. Dr. Dieter Nürnberg for his many years of dedicated service to the medical profession.”

MHB president Hans-Uwe Simon found words of thanks and appreciation for this well-deserved award; he pointed to Nürnberg’s ongoing activities at the MHB in teaching and research, as senior professor of gastroenterology and mentor for ultrasound tutors. He expressed the hope that the MHB will continue to profit from Nürnberg’s experience and dedication for many years to come.

In his acceptance speech Prof. Nürnberg was proud to underline that in the past two years the MHB already made a ‘gift’ of more than 50 newly trained physicians to Brandenburg. The hoped-for effect when the MHB was founded that medical graduates would stay in the region has materialized, so Nürnberg: “This is why I appeal to the LÄKB and also to those responsible in the regional government to continue their support for the MHB and strengthen its position as an integral part of the university landscape in Brandenburg.”

Born in Neuruppin in 1952, Nürnberg studied medicine at the Humboldt University in Berlin from 1973 to 1979, followed by a doctorate in 1980. He successfully completed his specialist training in internal medicine at the (then) regional hospital in Neuruppin in 1984.

In 1983 he set up a department for ultrasound diagnostics at the hospital in Neuruppin and started pertinent training activities. Simultaneously he pursued intermittent functions at the Charité. From 1986 he held the position of senior physician of gastroenterology in Neuruppin, and in 1991 he was appointed head physician at the Medical Clinic B / Ruppiner Kliniken with a focus on gastroenterology/oncology. In 1994 he acquired a postdoctoral lecturing qualification at the University of Rostock where he gave regular lectures on ultrasound diagnostics.
He was appointed senior physician at the Geriatric Clinic / Ruppiner Kliniken in the same year and became a member of the hospital management, first as deputy medical director, then medical director. Nürnberg showed a strong interest not only in healing patients but specifically in supporting those patients for whom there is no cure. He was a co-founder of the hospice in Neuruppin and in 2007 initiated the palliative care organization HOSPA which he heads to this day.

He served as a member of the LÄKB board of examiners in gastroenterology from 1991 to 2016, and as its chairman from 1998. In October 2018 Prof. Nürnberg was honoured with the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.