About Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift

Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift

The Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift (DMW) is one of the oldest and most respected medical journals in Germany, published by the Georg Thieme Verlag in Stuttgart. Founded in 1875 by Paul Albrecht Börner, it has appeared continuously for 150 years, making it a living archive of the development of modern medicine in the German-speaking world. The journal serves internists, general practitioners and medical opinion leaders with practice-oriented continuing education in internal medicine and beyond, combining focus-topic dossiers, concise reports on international study results, reviews, case reports and step-by-step guides. It is the official publication of the German Society for Internal Medicine (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Innere Medizin) and the Society of German Natural Scientists and Physicians, and its editor-in-chief is Martin Middeke. With 25 issues per year, 5.4 million full-text uses annually and 30 CME points on offer, it remains a cornerstone of German medical publishing.

Overview

The DMW's claim is to present current, evidence-based medical knowledge in a way that is understandable, concise and close to practice. Its readership consists of internists in hospitals and private practice, general practitioners, and the medical opinion leaders who shape treatment standards in the German-speaking countries. The journal's mix is deliberately varied: focus-topic dossiers examine a relevant question from different angles with concrete instructions for everyday clinical work; the "Aktuell publiziert" section reports succinctly on international study results; reviews, case histories and step-by-step instructions convey solid specialist knowledge for beginners and experienced experts alike; and the "Medizin im Kontext" section widens the view beyond purely specialist topics.

Continuing medical education is woven into the journal's fabric. Readers can earn 30 CME points per year through the journal's certified training programme, making the DMW a practical instrument for the documented continuing education that German physicians are required to complete. Original articles appear online open access, and four annual special issues on "Klinischer Fortschritt" (clinical progress) deliver bundled updates from all focus areas of internal medicine and adjacent disciplines.

The journal's bibliographic identity is well established: its ISO 4 abbreviation is Dtsch. Med. Wochenschr., its print ISSN is 0012-0472 and its web ISSN is 1439-4413, and it is indexed in the major medical databases including Scopus and MEDLINE. In the 1980s it ranked tenth in the world by impact factor; like other German-language journals, it has since lost ground to the English-language literature, but it has retained its role as the leading German-language journal for internal medicine.

History

The DMW was founded in 1875 by Paul Albrecht Börner, at a time when German medicine was entering its most productive era, with figures such as Robert Koch and Rudolf Virchow reshaping the understanding of disease. The new weekly gave German physicians a regular, reliable source of medical news and scientific exchange, and it quickly became one of the central organs of the German medical profession. Its volumes document 150 years of medical history: the bacteriological revolution, the development of modern surgery and anaesthesia, the rise of internal medicine as a specialty, the advent of antibiotics, and the molecular transformation of medicine in recent decades.

The journal's continuity was interrupted only once, during the final phase of the Second World War, when it was merged with other journals into the war-time "Medizinische Zeitschrift" from October 1944 to February 1945; it resumed independent publication on 10 May 1946. In the post-war decades it chronicled the rebuilding of German medicine and the establishment of the modern healthcare system, and its 125th anniversary in 2000 was marked with historical reflections on its development and perspectives.

The DMW is published by the Georg Thieme Verlag in Stuttgart, one of Germany's great medical and scientific publishing houses, and serves as the official publication of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Innere Medizin (DGIM) and the Gesellschaft Deutscher Naturforscher und Ärzte (GDNÄ). This institutional anchoring connects the journal directly to the professional societies that define standards in German internal medicine. The journal celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2025, an occasion that underlined its unique status as a continuously published witness to the entire history of modern medicine.

Coverage and Content

The DMW's content is organised around the needs of practising internists and general practitioners. The dossier format treats a focus topic from several perspectives in a single issue, for example a common clinical syndrome examined through diagnostics, drug therapy, interventional options and aftercare, always with concrete recommendations for action. This format reflects the journal's pedagogical mission: not to publish primary research for its own sake, but to translate the state of knowledge into clinical competence.

The journal reports concisely on international study results, selecting the trials and meta-analyses most relevant for German practice and summarising their implications. Reviews synthesise the evidence on specific diseases and treatment approaches, while case reports and case examples illustrate diagnostic reasoning and therapeutic decisions through real patient histories. Step-by-step guides walk readers through procedures and clinical algorithms, and "Medizin im Kontext" addresses the broader context of medical practice, from healthcare policy to the history of medicine and the ethical dimensions of clinical work.

The four annual special issues on clinical progress provide systematic updates across the subspecialties of internal medicine, cardiology, gastroenterology, pulmonology, nephrology, endocrinology, rheumatology, haematology and oncology, as well as adjacent fields. Original research articles are published online open access, ensuring that new findings are freely available to the international community. All content is produced to the standards of a peer-reviewed medical journal, with the practical orientation that has defined the DMW since 1875.

Organization and Ownership

The DMW is published by the Georg Thieme Verlag KG in Stuttgart, one of the world's leading publishers of medical and scientific information. The editor-in-chief is Martin Middeke, a specialist in internal medicine. The journal's status as the official publication of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Innere Medizin and the Gesellschaft Deutscher Naturforscher und Ärzte gives it a direct institutional connection to the societies that represent German internal medicine and the broader scientific community.

The editorial office works with a network of specialist authors, reviewers and the committees of the affiliated societies, ensuring that the journal's content reflects both the current state of research and the consensus of the professional community. The Thieme publishing infrastructure provides professional editorial, production and distribution services, as well as the digital platform Thieme Connect, through which the journal's e-journal edition is delivered.

The business model combines institutional and personal subscriptions in print and online, society memberships that include the journal, and advertising from the pharmaceutical and medical-technology industries, presented separately from editorial content in accordance with German press and medical advertising rules. The journal's reach, with 5.4 million full-text uses per year, documents its continued relevance in an era when much medical reading has moved online.

Digital Presence

The DMW's digital home is the Thieme Connect platform, where the e-journal edition offers full-text search, online-first publication and digital object identifiers for all articles. Original articles are published open access online, making new research freely available, while the archive provides access to the journal's back catalogue. The platform supports institutional access for hospitals and universities as well as personal subscriptions that combine print and digital reading.

The CME programme is fully integrated into the digital offering: physicians can complete the certified training modules online and collect their 30 annual CME points electronically, a workflow that fits the daily routines of busy clinicians. The publisher's website presents the journal with key figures, subscription options and free trial access, and newsletters deliver selected content to subscribers' inboxes.

The journal's digital strategy reflects its dual identity as a historical institution and a modern continuing-education medium. The archive, stretching back to 1875, is a unique resource for the history of medicine, while the current digital services, online-first publication, open-access originals, digital CME and full-text search, serve the immediate needs of practising physicians. For the German medical community, the DMW remains what it has been for 150 years: the weekly companion that keeps doctors current with the state of their science.