[Rheumatology: Integration into student training--the RISA- Study. Results of a survey exploring the scale of education and training in rheumatology at German universities].

During the Bone and Joint Decade 2000-2010, national and international rheumatological societies campaign for improvements of undergraduate training in the field of musculoskeletal diseases. In 2002, the Committee for Undergraduate Training of the German Society for Rheumatology (DGRh) performed a survey in order to estimate the extent of rheumatological undergraduate training at German universities. A questionnaire was sent to all university hospitals for internal medicine and for orthopaedics. The items of the survey covered the qualification of the teachers, the number and the time frame of lessons and courses, as well as the items of the curriculum in rheumatology. With 95% of the universities responding, a broad variation of the quality of rheumatological training became obvious, ranging from the absence of competent teaching to a comprehensive curriculum covering theory and practical training. Only a minority of universities fulfilled the recommendations of the DGRh for undergraduate education. The most substantial deficits are found in practical training, caused by insufficiently small numbers of patients seen by the medical students, and by the short duration of the practical courses. The insights described here should lead to the adaptation of the level of education in the field of rheumatology to the demands of a society with growing musculoskeletal problems.