About Medical Tribune

Medical Tribune

Medical Tribune is a German-language specialist newspaper for physicians, published in Wiesbaden. Under the motto "von Ärzten für Ärzte" — by physicians, for physicians — it has served the medical profession since January 1966, appearing every two weeks on Fridays. The title belongs to the MedTriX Group, the Wiesbaden-based medical media house founded in 2022, and operates the portal medical-tribune.de alongside its print edition. Its readership consists of practicing physicians across specialties, above all office-based general practitioners and specialists. In the German medical press, where the Ärzte Zeitung (Springer Medizin) and the Deutsches Ärzteblatt address the profession with daily and weekly rhythms, Medical Tribune holds its position as the fortnightly physicians' newspaper with one of the longest continuous publication histories in the German-language medical media market.

Overview

Medical Tribune Deutschland presents itself as a brand for medical specialist information, headquartered in Wiesbaden. The newspaper appears fortnightly on Fridays and addresses physicians in practice and clinic with a mix of medical specialist reporting, health-policy news, and practice-management content. The editorial program is built for the working physician: concise, clinically relevant specialist information that can be absorbed between consultations, alongside coverage of the regulatory and economic framework conditions of medical practice in Germany.

The readership is concentrated among office-based physicians — general practitioners, internists, and specialists in private practice — the classic audience of the independent physicians' press. The distributed circulation was reported at 56,161 copies in the fourth quarter of 2018 under IVW audit, the German circulation-audit standard to which the publisher adheres as a member of the Informationsgemeinschaft zur Feststellung der Verbreitung von Werbeträgern (IVW). The editor-in-chief is Kathrin Strobel; the publisher (Herausgeber) is Günter Nuber.

The MedTriX Group, to which the title has belonged since February 2022, operates from Unter den Eichen 5 in Wiesbaden and publishes a portfolio of medical specialist media. The group's managing directors are Stephan Kröck and Markus Zobel. The Medical Tribune brand extends beyond Germany: Medical Tribune Österreich has appeared since 1969, and the group is represented in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Turkey. The international editions adapt the physicians'-newspaper concept to their national healthcare systems while sharing the brand's editorial identity — a network of medical specialist media that traces its lineage to the 1960 New York founding and the 1966 German launch.

History

Medical Tribune Deutschland was launched in January 1966 by Günther Stroh, emerging from the Fitzroy Publications GmbH and the Medical Tribune of New York — founded in 1960 by Arthur Sackler, the American physician and publisher whose biweekly physicians' newspaper eventually reached six hundred thousand physicians. The German edition thus began as the German-language offspring of an American physicians'-press concept: a newspaper written by physicians for physicians, independent of the medical associations' official organs.

Since 2000 the Süddeutsche Verlag — the Munich publishing house behind the Süddeutsche Zeitung — was the parent company of the Medical Tribune publishing group, giving the physicians' newspaper a home within one of Germany's major quality-press houses. Under this ownership the title developed its fortnightly rhythm and its position in the German medical media market, alongside the group's international editions.

In February 2022 the title moved to the newly founded MedTriX Group, a Wiesbaden-based medical media house that consolidated the former Medical Tribune publishing activities. The MedTriX Group, led by managing directors Stephan Kröck and Markus Zobel with Günter Nuber as publisher, has since operated the Medical Tribune brands in the German-speaking markets and beyond. The 2026 media data of the publisher — price list number 39, effective January 1, 2026 — documents the title's continued operation with its established fortnightly Friday rhythm.

Coverage and Content

The editorial coverage of Medical Tribune is organized around the information needs of the practicing physician. Specialist medical reporting forms the core: clinically relevant developments across the specialties that matter in office-based practice — from cardiology, diabetology, and neurology to dermatology, orthopedics, and pediatrics — presented in a form that supports diagnostic and therapeutic decisions. The "by physicians, for physicians" motto expresses the editorial claim: content written from the practitioner's perspective rather than from the pharmaceutical industry's or the health-policy apparatus's.

Health-policy and professional-politics coverage forms the second pillar: the regulatory, reimbursement, and organizational framework of medical practice in Germany — from fee-schedule reforms to digitalization mandates — reported for the physicians whose daily work these decisions shape. Practice-management content addresses the economic and organizational side of running a medical practice: staff management, quality management, and the business aspects of the physician's profession.

The newspaper's fortnightly rhythm shapes its journalism: less the daily news ticker than the curated specialist briefing, with background, context, and the discussion of what new developments mean for practice. The portal medical-tribune.de extends this coverage into continuous online reporting, and the publisher's reader analyses document the title's penetration of its physician audience for the advertising market. The brand's longevity — six decades of continuous publication since 1966 — gives it a distinctive institutional memory within the German medical press: generations of physicians have grown up professionally with the fortnightly newspaper, and its archives document the transformation of German medicine from the postwar era through reunification to the digitalization of the healthcare system.

Organization and Ownership

Medical Tribune is published by the MedTriX Group, headquartered at Unter den Eichen 5, 65195 Wiesbaden. The group was newly founded in 2022 and has owned the Medical Tribune brands since February 2022. Its managing directors are Stephan Kröck and Markus Zobel; the publisher (Herausgeber) of Medical Tribune is Günter Nuber, and the editor-in-chief is Kathrin Strobel.

The group's history reaches back to the Medical Tribune publishing group founded around the 1966 German launch by Günther Stroh, which from 2000 belonged to the Süddeutsche Verlag as parent company. The international footprint of the brand — Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Turkey, with Medical Tribune Österreich appearing since 1969 — reflects the publishing group's long-standing activity in Central and Eastern European medical media markets.

The publisher is a member of the IVW, the German circulation-audit organization, and publishes its media data annually; the 2026 price list documents the title's advertising formats, technical specifications, and terms. The commercial model combines print and online advertising — including pharmaceutical advertising under the applicable regulations — with the subscription and controlled-circulation distribution to physicians. Precise current circulation figures beyond the IVW-audited historical data are published in the publisher's media data for advertising customers. The group's Wiesbaden headquarters places the title in one of Germany's traditional media cities, and its membership in the IVW circulation-audit system underscores the title's standing as an audited, professionally distributed specialist newspaper rather than a free-sheet.

Digital Presence

The digital centerpiece of the brand is medical-tribune.de, which publishes medical specialist news, health-policy reporting, and practice-management content on a rolling basis. The portal serves the title's physician readership between the fortnightly print issues and functions as the subscription and service platform of the newspaper, with the publisher's media data, technical specifications, and general terms available online.

The Swiss edition operates at medical-tribune.ch, reflecting the brand's DACH presence. The MedTriX Group's digital infrastructure — with group-wide contact addresses at medtrix.group and centralized advertising disposition — supports the title's online advertising business and its reader services. The publisher's newsletters and online formats extend the fortnightly print rhythm into continuous digital contact with the physician audience, positioning Medical Tribune as a cross-media brand for medical specialist information in the German-speaking markets.