Medical University of Vienna

The Medical University of Vienna is a public university in Vienna. It is the direct successor to the medical faculty of the University of Vienna, which was founded in 1365 by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria. That makes it one of the oldest medical schools in the world, the oldest in the German-speaking countries, and the second medical faculty in the Holy Roman Empire after Charles University in Prague. The institution is the largest medical organisation in Austria and provides the Vienna General Hospital with all of its medical staff. It consists of 31 university clinics and clinical institutes and 12 medical-theoretical departments.

Its character comes from a long line of firsts and names. Under Maria Theresia, Gerard van Swieten laid the foundation for the Vienna Medical School, and bedside teaching became the paradigmatic method. The Vienna General Hospital opened in 1784 and grew into the most important research centre. The 19th century brought the Second Viennese Medical School, with Karl Rokitansky, Josef Skoda, Ferdinand von Hebra and Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis, and the first dermatology, eye and otolaryngology clinics in the world were founded in Vienna. Seven Nobel Prize laureates are affiliated with the medical faculty, among them Robert Bárány, Julius Wagner-Jauregg and Karl Landsteiner, who discovered the ABO blood type system and the Rhesus factor. Sigmund Freud qualified as a doctor at the medical faculty and worked as a doctor and lecturer at the General Hospital.

Teaching is organised through the university clinics and clinical institutes together with the medical-theoretical departments, which perform around 48,000 operations each year. The Vienna General Hospital treats about 100,000 inpatients and 605,000 outpatients each year. Admission to medicine and dentistry is based on ranking in the MedAT admission test, carried out every summer together with the three other public medical schools of Austria. In 2019 there were 8,217 applicants for 660 places in medicine proper and 80 in dentistry.

The national register lists the institution in the university category as a public university, with 10 programmes of all kinds and languages and 6 English-taught degree programmes: 1 Bachelor's, 1 Master's and 4 PhD or doctorate. Subjects taught are philosophy, biomedical science, medicine and health sciences, and data science.

For an international student, the practical points are these. You apply direct to the institution, which sets its own application period and entrance procedure. Students from outside the EU/EEA need a Residence Permit, Student. At public universities there is no tuition for EU/EEA and Swiss students within the standard duration plus two semesters, and most other students pay a per-semester fee. Every student pays the student union fee.