Hintergrundinfos zur FSP

Professional background to the medical language proficiency examination

‚Doctor shortages’ and ‚skills shortages’ have long been firmly established buzzwords in healthcare policy discourse. More and more doctors from abroad are closing the care gap.

However, during the integration process into professional life, they are confronted with subject-specific, administrative, and cultural challenges which always also manifest linguistically. Lack of or inadequate competencies often lead to a decline in the quality of care, reduced patient satisfaction, and inter-professional conflicts. In extreme cases, communication failure can even be a matter of life and death. Competent communication management, including the prevention and therapy of misunderstandings, is a vital element of medical practice.

Therefore, the 87th Conference of Health Ministers (GMK) in 2014 resolved to introduce a specialist language examination (FSP) nationwide for professionals in regulated academic healthcare professions, setting out basic framework conditions. Such an FSP is a prerequisite for the admission of foreign doctors to Germany.

To date, there are no common standards for the test-theoretical and methodological The framework conditions for the FSP. The formal framework specifications of the GMK relate primarily to language level C1 in a specialised form. While these specifications have created the necessary framework conditions for higher language standards, the responsibility for guaranteeing high-quality FSPs lies with the individual states.

The absence of a nationally uniform FSP in turn harbours the danger of “exam tourism”, which consists of foreign doctors preferentially registering for exams in countries where the exam is easier to manage than in other federal states.

From 2016, an interdisciplinary research team from Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) from the fields of medicine, medical didactics, German as a Foreign Language (DaF), and psychometrics therefore developed a valid, reliable, fair, authentic, objective, and economically feasible language test for foreign doctors (SAM).

Building on the pilot project, FaMed was developed. In addition to the high validity, objectivity, and reliability of the examination, which was developed according to international scientific standards, the examination impresses with its efficient digital implementation. From registration and execution, to the transcription of conversation data and its evaluation, through to the issuing of certificates and the transmission of results. Participants only need to physically attend the examination centre, but otherwise have no direct contact with the examination personnel.

Professional background to the medical language proficiency examination

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