(Vienna, 17 July 2017) Children in Power – in the words of the all-time hit by Herbert Grönemeyer, it is the kids who are "ruling" for a week at the Medical University of Vienna. Today MedUni Vienna's Vice Rector for Clinical Matters, Oswald Wagner, opened KinderuniMedizin [Children’s University - Medicine], which is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year and offering a total of 6,000 student places in 87 classes focusing on the theme of "Saving lives, helping people". The opening lecture entitled "What exactly is epilepsy?" was given by Helmut Kubista from MedUni Vienna's Division of Neurophysiology and Neuropharmacology.
"You are never too young to learn about health, especially emergency medicine and First Aid. KinderuniMedizin is a particularly good vehicle for this. The rising number of participants demonstrates the huge amount of interest in science and medicine among young people," said Vice Rector Wagner. “Although not all participants will go on to pursue a career in medicine or research, the children and young people nevertheless gather important information and experiences that will last their whole lives."
First Aid is easy to learn
Even life-savers have to practice: whether it's a road accident, a fire or a circulatory collapse, everyone should know what to do in an emergency. Incidents needing first aid to be administered usually occur in our everyday environment: at home, at school, in the playground. There are many different first-aid measures, ranging from choosing the correct dressings for wounds to using defibrillators in serious emergencies. Anyone can learn First Aid and so we are offering numerous workshops to teach it in 2017.
The exciting themes of the seminars, workshops and lectures range from "Anyone can help", "What happens when the emergency doctor arrives with sirens blaring", "How do Doctors without Borders help?" through to "Is life-saving child’s play?". In total, KinderuniWien [Children’s University - Vienna] will include nearly 440 teaching events and around 4,000 children aged between 7 and 12 years-of-age will take part – KinderuniWien ends on 22 July with the graduation ceremony in the Great Hall of the University of Vienna.
Recognition for 15 and 10 years of teaching
Also, seven teachers, who have now been teaching at KinderuniMedizin for 15 and 10 years respectively, were honoured on Monday: Piero Lercher (lectures on Life records/How do I grow tall, strong, smart and invincible?), Erich Maier (Basic course on surgery/Why do I need an operation? Where does tummy ache come from?) and Daniela Dörfler/Bettina Weidinger (Palpitations, tingling and sweet dreams) have been involved right from the start. Richard Crevenna (Observing movement/Biofeedback), Ruth Koblizek (Sharp eye needed/What do medical images show us?) and Irene Lang (Where does blood flow to?) have been teaching the children for 10 years.