Quota for public health service allows admission outside the medical selection process – Support through subject-specific courses – Study places in Frankfurt, Marburg, and Giessen – Applications open 1st February 2026
Those who want to take care of both the health of individual patients and the health of the population as a whole can do so as a specialist physician in Public Health. The Hessian universities offer a program within medical studies that specifically prepares students for this career path, known as a specialized focus curriculum. Around 15 study places per year are awarded to interested applicants who commit to working in the Public Health Service for ten years after graduation. For these applicants, high school grades and the medical aptitude test are less decisive than their personal and subject-specific suitability.
When choosing their specialization, prospective medical students rarely have the Public Health Service on their radar. Yet future specialist physicians in Public Health can expect a wide range of topics and activities: Alongside infection control – not only in times of coronavirus – and hygiene in areas such as emergency services or sports facilities, the work also includes children’s and adolescents’ health, mental health, medical consultations, expert assessments, and certifications. The Public Health Service is active in prevention and health promotion and advises, for example, on how cities can adapt to climate change. It also offers consultations for people without financial means or health insurance, for sex workers, and for pregnant women and parents in particularly difficult life situations, as well as travel medicine consultations.
“Specialist physicians in Public Health are all-rounders,” says Jon Genuneit, who holds Hesse’s first professorship in Public Health at Goethe University since September and heads the new Institute for Public Health at the Faculty of Medicine. “At Hesse’s medical universities – Marburg, Giessen, and of course here in Frankfurt – we prepare medical students from the first to the last semester with a subject-specific focus curriculum.” This program includes regular meetings with mentors who help students cope with the challenges of a demanding course of study. Topics include time management, stress management, and professional development. The theoretical foundations for the tasks of the Public Health Service are taught in a seminar series, and during internships students have the opportunity to become familiar with various areas of work of local health authorities in practice. Initial internships have taken place at the Frankfurt Health Authority, which was involved in developing the program. In the future, internships are to be offered at all health authorities in Hesse.das Programm entwickelt wurde. In Zukunft sollen Hospitationen an allen Gesundheitsämtern in Hessen möglich sein.
“In this structured form, our focus curriculum is unique nationwide,” says Genuneit. “Here, students do not simply receive a study place, but a tailored teaching program that specifically prepares them for later work at a health authority.” The focus curriculum is not designed as an additional learning burden; instead, it can be credited toward the compulsory elective component of the degree program and completed as such. Furthermore, the focus curriculum is also open to students who did not obtain their study place via the Public Health Service quota.
The quota for the Public Health Service, as well as the “rural doctor” quota (“Landarztquote”), was introduced by the State of Hesse for the winter semester 2022/2023. The application process is administered by the Hessian State Office for Health and Care; applications can be submitted from 1 to 28 February 2026.
Information on the application process and – from 1 February 2026 – the link to the applicant portal can be found on the website of the Hessian State Office for Health and Care (in German)
Information on the focus curriculum (in German)
Examples of the tasks of the Frankfurt Public Health Authority (in German)
