Tobias Deutsch

• PD Dr. rer. med. habil.
• Group Leader at Leipzig University

Background: Primary care is integral to healthcare systems extending beyond traditional illness management to include preventive care, chronic disease management, and health promotion. Practice-based research networks (PBRNs) have emerged as essential infrastructures for conducting clinical research in primary care. This study explores the establi...

Zusammenfassung Hintergrund L‑Thyroxin ist eines der am häufigsten verordneten Arzneimittel in Deutschland. Es wird hauptsächlich zur Behandlung der Hypothyreose eingesetzt. Aufgrund von Verordnungsdaten ist davon auszugehen, dass L‑Thyroxin häufiger verordnet wird als es medizinisch indiziert ist. Ziel der Arbeit Sind hausärztlich Tätige bereit,...

A BSTRACT Background The growing importance of collecting Broad Consent (BC) for research utilizing electronic health records in Germany has brought attention to the need for a deeper understanding of potential selection bias in the process. Since 2020, the BeoNet-Halle outpatient database has been collecting anonymous and pseudonymous patient dat...

Introduction General practitioners (GPs) are mostly the first point of contact for patients with health problems in Germany. There is only a limited epidemiological overview data that describe the GP consultation hours based on other than billing data. Therefore, the aim of Saxon Epidemiological Study in General Practice-6 (SESAM-6) is to examine t...

Aim: Many universities offer rural medical internships for medical students. The present survey was designed to show how rural medical work is perceived by students, whether these perceptions are associated with origin and previous experience, and how well medical students know rural regions in the vicinity of their university. In addition, studen...

Objective: We conducted a scoping review with the aim of comprehensively investigating what tools or methods have been examined in general practice research that capture a wide range of psychosocial problems (PSPs) and serve to identify patients and highlight their characteristics. Methods: We followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systemati...

Background: Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, more than 7.6 million people from Ukraine have been registered as refugees in European countries. In Germany, the number is estimated to be more than 1 million. These refugees may have different health needs than German patients due to differences in the health care system, disease prevalence,...

Objectives To explore when and why undergraduate medical students drop out of longitudinal extracurricular general practice (GP) tracks and to describe their future career plans. Design Cross-sectional online survey and descriptive analysis of routine data. Setting GP tracks at two German medical faculties, data collection took place between Sept...

Background Longitudinal general practice tracks have been established in medical faculties in Europe and worldwide to attract more graduates to general practice careers. In many programs, long-term mentoring relationships play an important role in providing students with positive role models, regular practical experiences, and acquisition of clinic...

Background Aging simulation games are established educational interventions to make older patients’ perspectives noticeable, raise awareness about their needs, and positively influence attitudes toward older adults. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions imposed on education, we replaced a classroom-based aging simulation course with a simple on...

Objectives: To investigate general practitioners' (GPs') willingness to participate in long-term medical research and in research networks (RNs). Design and setting: Cross-sectional survey among German GPs around Halle-Wittenberg and Leipzig in 2020. Subjects: Random sample of 905 GPs. Main outcome measures and results: Response rate 37%, 69...

Background Among the various factors identified as relevant for primary care career choice, financial considerations have been consistently shown to have an impact. In Germany, reliable and easily understandable information on physicians’ earning opportunities in self-employed settings is difficult to obtain for medical students, leading to substan...

Background During the COVID-19 pandemic, the University of Leipzig completely switched to online teaching. Thus, we developed a practice-oriented digital substitute for a two-week mandatory general practice (GP) clerkship. Main components were processing of clinical cases and additional GP topics, visual diagnoses, information and examination video...

The COVID-19 pandemic affected regular health care for patients with chronic diseases. However, the impact of the pandemic on primary care for patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) who are enrolled in a structured disease management program (DMP) in Germany is not clear. We investigated whether the pandemic affected primary care and health ou...

Introduction Psychosocial problems (PSPs) are common issues associated with negative health outcomes. Since general practitioners are the first point of contact for any health-related concern, understanding their options to recognise patients with PSPs plays an important role as it is essential for early intervention and can prevent serious conditi...

Background Osteopathy is a type of complementary medicine based on specific manual techniques. In many countries, including Germany, the profession is not officially regulated, and evidence for the effectiveness of osteopathy is insufficient for most diseases. Nevertheless, many health insurances in Germany offer reimbursement for therapy costs, if...

Objectives While literature provides substantial evidence that undergraduate rural clerkships may contribute to attract medical students to rural careers, so far little is known about how to convince medical students to choose rural teaching sites for their clerkships, which is usually optional. Thus, this study aimed to investigate students’ prefe...

Background: Osteopathy is a type of complementary medicine based on specific manual techniques. In many countries, including Germany, the profession is not officially regulated, and evidence for the effectiveness of osteopathy is insufficient for most diseases. Nevertheless, many health insurances in Germany offer reimbursement for therapy costs, i...

Background: A shortage of physicians and corresponding inadequate patient care threaten particularly rural, structurally weak regions. Previous studies have focused on factors that encourage or discourage doctors in their decision to establish a practice in rural areas. Little is known about factors such as job satisfaction and workload and geogra...

Background: Several studies report a substantial impact of financial considerations on the process of specialty choice and the willingness to establish one's own practice. In Germany, reliable information on self-employed physicians' earning opportunities is basically available, but not easily accessible and understandable for medical students. Mi...

Background: Over the last two decades, ultrasonography (US) has been shown to be an accurate tool for the diagnosis of suspected bone fractures; however, the integration of this application of US into routine care and outpatient settings needs to be explored. In this study, we surveyed German general practitioners (GPs) to assess their knowledge,...

Background: Over the last two decades, ultrasonography (US) has been shown to be an accurate tool for the diagnosis of suspected bone fractures; however, the integration of this application of US into routine care and outpatient settings needs to be explored. In this study, we surveyed German general practitioners (GPs) to assess their knowledge, a...

Objectives This study investigates students’ adoption of LeiKA, a new extracurricular longitudinal general practice (GP) teaching project. LeiKA aims to attract a broad range of students, not only those who are already planning to become GPs. This study compares participants’ and non-participants’ characteristics, career preferences and job-related...

Background: Over the last two decades, ultrasonography (US) has been shown to be an accurate tool for the diagnosis of suspected bone fractures; however, the conditions for integrating this usage of US into general practice need to be specified. In this study, we surveyed German general practitioners (GPs) to assess their knowledge, attitudes, and...

Background and Aims Comprehensive geriatric assessments are established tools for the identification of health problems in the elderly. So far, little is known about tailoring and targeting to facilitate their application. As a starting point for a tailored assessment of patients with diabetes, a highly prevalent health condition, we aimed to asses...

Background Worldwide, many undergraduate general practice curricula include community-based courses at general practitioners’ (GPs’) offices. Usually the academic general practice departments collaborate with networks of affiliated teaching practices. To successfully master the challenge of network development and extension, more information is nee...

Background Many countries are faced with a decrease in physicians in non-urban areas. Especially for regions with decreasing populations, temporary solutions like commuting models might be a suitable option. So far, little is known about the willingness to commute among future physicians. Methods In this multicenter, cross-sectional survey, five y...

Background: Ultrasound imaging can be used to diagnose fractures in patients with acute trauma. Its main advantages over conventional imaging are the absence of radiation exposure and its greater availability. Methods: A systematic search in electronic databases (Medline, Embase, Cochrane CENTRAL) was supplemented by a manual search on the Inter...

Background: In medical education and practice, smartphone apps are increasingly becoming popular. In general practice, apps could play an important future role in supporting medical education and practice. Objectives: To explore medical students' perceptions regarding the potential of a general practice app for training and subsequent work as a...

Introduction: There is little knowledge about the use of point-of-care (POC) tests among general practitioners (GPs). The aim of this study was to determine which POC tests are known and used by GPs and how they estimate the usefulness of those tests. The use of POC tests among GPs and university-associated general practitioners who teach undergra...

Objective The aim of this study is to describe the frequency of reasons for elderly patients visits to a general practice (GP) setting. Subjects and methods Cross-sectional data from 8,877 randomly selected patients were assessed during a 1-year period by 209 GPs in the German federal state of Saxony. The reasons for visits, performed procedures,...

Background: To be able to counter the increasing shortage of general practitioners (GPs) in many countries, it is crucial to remain up-to-date with the decisive reasons why young physicians choose or reject a career in this field. Materials and Methods: Qualitative content analysis was performed using data from a cross-sectional survey among Germa...

Smartphones and related applications are increasingly gaining relevance in the healthcare domain. We previously assessed the demands and preferences of medical students towards an application accompanying them during a course on general practice. The current study aims to elucidate the factors associated with adoption of such a technology. Therefor...

Because of the increasing shortage of general practitioners (GPs) in many countries, this study aimed to explore factors related to GP career choice in recent medical graduates. Particular focus was placed on the impact of specific practice-orientated GP courses at different stages of the medical undergraduate curriculum. Observational study. Multi...

Undergraduate and postgraduate medical education in general practice is complex as a wide medical spectrum needs to be covered. Modern guidelines demand students to be able to recall immense amounts of information relating to the diagnosis and management of clinical problems. With the intent of making a medical textbook digitally available on stude...

Introduction: The present study compares for the first time the standard therapy for cervical cancer in FIGO-stages IB-IIB, radical hysterectomy according to the Wertheim-Meigs operation, with the newly developed, nerve-sparing surgical technique, total mesometrial resection (TMMR) with regard to postoperative, health-related quality of life. Metho...

The importance of a family-centered approach in family practice has been emphasized. Knowledge about factors associated with higher family-centered involvement seems beneficial to stimulate its realization. German office-based family physicians completed a questionnaire addressing several aspects of family-centered care. Logistic regression was use...

With regard to the growing proportion of elderly multimorbid patients, a sound undergraduate geriatric education becomes more important. Therefore we included the execution and interpretation of a comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) into a mandatory two-week clerkship at a general practitioner's office. The present study examined the effect of...

Background: Demographic change and recruitment problems in general practice are increasingly threatening an adequate primary care workforce in many countries. Medical schools play an important role in attracting young physicians to this field. The influence of the general practice curriculum on the career choice of graduates has not yet been suffi...

Demographic change and recruitment problems in family practice are increasingly threatening an adequate primary care workforce in many countries. Thus, it is important to attract young physicians to the field. The purpose of the present study was to examine the effect of an early community-based 28-h family practice elective with one-to-one mentori...

The study should prove the effectiveness of a preventive in-home CGA regarding mortality and time able to stay in the community. We performed a randomized controlled trial with a mean follow-up of 6.2 years. The home visits were performed in Germany. 1620 community-living persons aged 70 years and older (n=630 intervention; 990 controls) from 20 ge...

In an aging population the burden on health care systems depends on the proportion of lifetime spent in good or poor health. The objective of this study was to examine the effect of a ten-year cohort difference on NHA, indicating changes in lifetime spent without severe disabilities. Additionally, important risk factors for NHA were identified. The...

The increasing age of the population, especially in the western world, means that the prevalence of osteoarthritis is also increasing, with corresponding socioeconomic consequences. Although there is no curative intervention at present, in accordance with US and European guidelines, pharmacotherapeutic and non-pharmacological approaches aim at pain...

Low back pain is a common reason for encounter that affords a long term, multidisciplinary treatment. This paper is a narrative review of the SESAM-study as well the results of other primary care research evidence. Common diagnoses found in these studies of acute low back pain were: dorsalgia, lumbago with sciatica, other vertebral disc disorders,...

GP's are familiar with chest pain in patients who come for medical advice and aid. Causes have been investigated by means of several epidemiological studies. The SESAM-2 study revealed differences in prevalence depending on age and sex. Musculoskeletal problems are the primary causes of chest pain. Managing chest pain patients will always challenge...

An acute condition of delirium is defined as a mostly acute organic psychosis frequently based on dementia. In such cases, acute delirium is often relevantly due to reversible factors while the dementia remains. This acute condition requires specific attention to be focussed on side effects of drugs if these enhance cholinergic deficiency in the br...