Clinical training in SouthTyrol hospitals
Students gain hands-on experience across the South Tyrol Hospital Network, which includes the SABES healthcare organization and seven accredited public hospitals. These healthcare facilities provide comprehensive clinical environments with highly specialized departments essential for mastering key medical competencies.
To ensure effective coordination of this extensive network, SABES has established a dedicated organizational unit that manages all clinical training activities and research support. This specialized service organizes students into small groups of no more than 10 across the network hospitals, with medical staff playing a fundamental role in supporting, scheduling, and ensuring proper implementation of all activities.
Beyond the hospital network, the programme extends its educational reach through close collaboration with the Istituto di Medicina Generale for specialized training and research initiatives. Additionally, strategic agreements with the regional medical board strengthen the programme's emphasis on community-based medicine and care in local settings, ensuring students experience the full spectrum of medical practice from hospital-based to community care.
Teaching is delivered through a combination of class lectures, in-class and laboratory exercises, and small-group seminars led by faculty and dedicated tutors.
Each student is assigned a dedicated tutor, who supports academic development, monitors progress, and tracks attendance in an official student record booklet.
To meet academic standards, students must maintain a minimum attendance rate of 65% per module. Those who do not meet this threshold are required to arrange compensatory training activities with the Integrated Course Coordinator before being allowed to sit the corresponding exams.
In accordance with EU Directive 2013/55/EU, each ECTS credit represents 25 hours of training. Students are expected to complete at least 60 ECTS of clinical training within the total 360-credit curriculum necessary for graduation.
Clinical training is conducted in close partnership with the South Tyrolean Health Authority (Azienda Sanitaria dell’Alto Adige – SABES), which manages the regional hospital network and ensures high-quality teaching and supervision.
As a strategic partner of the Medicine and Surgery programme in Bolzano, SABES supports an integrated model of medical education in a multilingual environment. Thanks to this collaboration, students benefit from:
- Integrated internships, spanning SABES hospitals and accredited healthcare facilities, including both large hospitals and smaller local structures, providing diverse, people-centred clinical experience.
- Multilingual clinical practice, with internships conducted in Italian and German, reflecting the linguistic and cultural context of South Tyrol.
- Tutorship, skills tracking, and professional development, coordinated through SABES and the Innovation, Research and Teaching Service (IRTS), ensuring personalized guidance, monitoring of practical competencies, clinical training integrated from the first year, and continuous training for students and tutors.
This collaboration ensures that students are well-prepared to work in diverse healthcare contexts, equipped with strong professional, linguistic, and intercultural competencies.
Upon evaluation by the Professional Training Practice Commission (CTP), internships may also be conducted at non-teaching hospitals or accredited healthcare institutions, provided they meet the necessary academic and quality standards.