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Thanks to the support of the Foundation for Continuing Medical Care, Rehabilitation and Prevention BRH, the University of Bern and the Insel Group have been able to establish an endowed professorship for interdisciplinary rehabilitation. This is endowed with 7.75 million Swiss francs and is intended to promote innovation as well as teaching and research.
The healthcare system is confronted with demographic developments and an increase in the number of people with chronic illnesses. As a result, health promotion and maintenance are gaining in importance alongside disease treatment, and with it rehabilitation. In medicine, rehabilitation means restoring the physical and mental abilities of patients with chronic illnesses, trauma or surgery. The secondary objective is to achieve reintegration into social and working life. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has identified rehabilitation as a priority health strategy for the 21st century, which should be available to the entire population at all stages of life. An essential and interdisciplinary focus of rehabilitative measures is health-promoting physical activity. This results in strong synergies between rehabilitation and sports and exercise medicine.
Platform for innovations
"The socially relevant field of rehabilitation will now be anchored in research and teaching at the University of Bern and Inselspital," says Christian Leumann, Rector of the University of Bern. The endowed professorship has an interdisciplinary and interprofessional focus and is intended to strengthen collaboration between centres and institutes at the University of Bern, university clinics at Inselspital, the Swiss Institute for Translational Medicine and Entrepreneurship sitem-insel and external partners such as Bern University of Applied Sciences. The endowed professorship will also establish an academic link between the Insel Group's Rehabilitation and Sports Medicine department and the University of Bern. "The professorship promotes the academisation of the medical field at Inselspital and serves as a platform for innovation with interdisciplinary research and networking at the medical location of Bern," says Leumann. Among other things, the use of digital technologies will be tested and implemented, for example for telerehabilitation.
Expansion of the rehabilitation programme
The endowed professorship will be established as an associate professorship with the support of the Foundation for Continuing Medical Care, Rehabilitation and Prevention BRH and the UniBE Foundation, will run for 15 years and is endowed with CHF 7.75 million. It will be based in the Insel Group's Rehabilitation and Sports Medicine Division. This is not made up of university clinics, but is a focal point consisting of various rehabilitative services in medical specialities such as cardiology, oncology, orthopaedics and pneumology. The division also includes rehabilitation services from the Berner Reha Zentrum Heiligenschwendi and an interdisciplinary rehabilitation department, which has been located on the Insel Campus since January 2024. "The Insel Gruppe is the largest rehabilitation provider in the canton of Bern and the Bern-Mittelland region," says Urs Peter Mosimann, Director of Medicine at the Insel Gruppe. "With the endowed professorship in the medical field of rehabilitation and sports medicine, we can address a broad spectrum of chronic illnesses and a large number of patients."
Highly specialised area
The BRH Foundation for Continuing Medical Treatment, Rehabilitation and Prevention supports and promotes measures for the continuing medical treatment, rehabilitation and prevention of impaired, sick and convalescent people. "We want to develop existing clinical research and university teaching on interdisciplinary rehabilitation into a highly specialised field," says Markus Meyer, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the BRH Foundation. "The endowed professorship increases the visibility and attractiveness of interdisciplinary rehabilitation at a local, national and international level and provides valuable impetus for clinical services and quality of care in Bern."
"Research, teaching and continuing education in the field of rehabilitation and sports medicine appeal equally to specialists in medicine, sports science, physiotherapy, psychology and nursing," says Claudio Bassetti, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Bern. "With the endowed professorship, the results of studies could be put into practice more quickly and the next generation of clinicians and academics could be promoted," Bassetti continues. Among other things, this would offer an opportunity to increase the proportion of female researchers, who are currently still underrepresented.
The endowed professorship will be advertised nationally and internationally. The appointment is planned for spring 2025.
The newly founded Centre for Rehabilitation and Sports Medicine at Inselspital offers innovative, personalised therapeutic approaches. These will also be the focus of the new endowed professorship. © Island Group