[Goals of the licensing regulation in social medicine education]

The importance of social medicine is generally recognised, but deficits still exist, not because of any lack of legal provisions in German legislation governing the permission of doctors to practise medicine, but because the discipline of social medicine is understaffed at universities on the one hand, whereas infrastructures are insufficient and training is not properly coordinated and closely meshed on the other. A paradigmatic change is imperative. A first step in the right direction is the increase in postgraduate training courses. The German Federal Ministry of Health will attach special importance to social medicine within the framework of forth-coming reforms in medical education for German doctors.