Nora Dalg, MD, Editor and Project Manager

Nora Dalg loves to delve intensively into scientific topics, to understand and penetrate things - that's why she studied medicine and worked as a physician. Today, she uses her knowledge and experience to prepare medical information in such a way that medical students and young physicians can acquire the necessary knowledge in the best possible way.

You studied medicine. What was your motivation back then?

Nora Dalg, MD: I have always been very interested in natural sciences and basic medical knowledge and knew that I wanted to study something in this direction. However, it wasn't quite clear to me what profession that would lead to. As a physician, would I work directly with patients or would I prefer to research the background? As a science journalist, bringing the latest findings to the public, or passing on my expertise to students in teaching?

After graduating from high school, I first wanted to gain practical experience and worked for two months as a nurse at Johns Hopkins Hospital in the USA, where I got to know many different departments. Studying medicine seemed like a good starting point, opening up many different options for me. And so I started studying in Cologne in 2001.

What did you particularly like about it?

Dalg: I found everything incredibly exciting. I liked to delve really deeply into topics. I was particularly enthusiastic about learning the basic subjects such as biochemistry, medical microbiology and pharmacology. But I was also interested in the interrelationships of internal medicine from the very beginning. To give myself a broad orientation, I deliberately completed my clinical clerkships in different specialties and during my internship year - in addition to internal medicine and surgery - I also got to know my elective subject of anesthesiology more intensively.

However, I also found the work in basic research interesting: I decided to do an experimental doctoral thesis at the Institute of Pharmacology. I enjoyed working in the lab a lot. In the end, I also liked writing the dissertation: researching the background again intensively and dealing with it in detail, examining the topic from all sides and then formulating my findings.

What was the next step?

Dalg: I really wanted to know what it was like to work "properly" as a physician in a clinic. There is a difference between gaining experience during the internship year and actually being responsible for a ward or the emergency room as a resident. That's why I worked for a year as a training assistant in internal medicine. I liked it very much in the clinic. It was exciting to be able to apply the theoretical knowledge from my studies. And I had nice colleagues who helped me a lot during some difficult and stressful services.

Nevertheless, I kept looking at what else might be possible professionally. I continued to think about working as a science journalist or as a specialist editor in a publishing house, preparing knowledge, putting it into shape and passing it on. When I saw a job posting from Thieme for a traineeship in the medical editorial department, I applied for it - and got the job.

How did you get started at Thieme and what happened next?

Dalg: At the time, I really wanted to do something completely new - with all the trimmings. That included moving from Cologne to Stuttgart in 2012. I did my traineeship in the editorial department that develops books for medical students and young physicians. I really enjoyed that right from the start. As an editor, I supervised various book projects, mainly in the clinical area, but also for the preclinical area - for example, the "Dual Series" or the "Short Textbooks". I found it particularly exciting to work on the book "EKG Course for Isabel," which I was so familiar with from my studies.

After completing my traineeship, I continued to work on a temporary basis and now work on a permanent basis, currently at 75 percent - still in the same editorial department.

What do you do at Thieme today? What are your tasks?

Dalg: I continue to edit books, but today I mainly work on modules for "via medici". In this learning and knowledge portal, we provide all the medical knowledge relevant to the preclinical and, to a large extent, clinical examinations in such a way that medical students can grasp and internalize it in the best possible way. That is our claim. It is a matter of identifying which knowledge is relevant, preparing the relevant information in varying degrees of detail in texts, selecting suitable illustrations or having them created, linking content in a meaningful way, selecting and integrating audios and videos. We do all this in close cooperation with the experts on the advisory board. In addition, together with other colleagues from the editorial team, I am responsible for responding to and implementing feedback: Via a corresponding function within the portal, users can draw our attention directly to errors in the content of the relevant section of the learning module, but also express their wishes for additional content or functions.

In addition to the content-related work, there are also technical issues: the content must be integrated without errors, all functionalities must work perfectly, and the modules must be optimally usable on all mobile devices. Other colleagues are primarily responsible for the technical development of the product. However, in our editorial meetings we regularly discuss which features we think would be useful or which technical challenges need to be solved.

What do you particularly like about your tasks?

Dalg: My tasks suit my interest in thinking intensively about medical topics, opening them up to me and really taking a close look. And I enjoy presenting complex issues in an understandable way.

What's more, my job is very varied: I'm always working on different specialist areas. This also means that I regularly have new and exciting exchanges with different advisory boards. And when the project or the respective subject area is finished, something else comes up again that I have to deal with. Every project has something special - and that excites me!

Above all, however, I enjoy witnessing how the digital learning portal "via medici" develops. I can play an active role in shaping it, suggesting new features and exploring ways to make the portal even better - that's great. Especially because we are very close to the medical students in everything we do. One of the ways we're able to do that is through the feedback function. I remember so well myself how blown away I was before the exam periods by the mass of knowledge I was supposed to learn. Now, thinking for myself how to get a handle on it, breaking it down into manageable learning units that you can navigate through intuitively, appeals to me a lot.

Where does your knowledge as a physician benefit you?

Dalg: I have in-depth specialist knowledge and have, by and large, learned everything that we prepare in terms of knowledge myself. That simply helps in everything I do.

On the other hand, I can judge from my own experience what it means to be confronted with such a huge amount of material, what it's like to study like mad and then have to recall the knowledge in the exams or decide and act quickly in the clinic. Having gone through that yourself is something else than just imagining it.

What have been your personal highlights so far?

Dalg: For me, the book projects that particularly interest me, not only in terms of content, but also in terms of the excellent cooperation with the authors, such as the "Dual Series of Physiology" or the "Short Textbooks" in Neurology and Medical Microbiology and Infectiology, are outstanding.

Another special project was the work on "I care," a three-volume textbook for nursing students based on a completely new didactic concept. I was part of an editorial team that worked intensively on the volume "Krankheitslehre" (teaching of diseases) and found it super exciting to think my way into this other user group, to learn how nursing education works, what prerequisites nursing students have, how they learn, what content is relevant for them, and then to think about how we can impart the necessary knowledge to them. That was a huge project.

It's fun when you work together to create something good and helpful.

Are you drawn back to the clinic or the lab?

Dalg: Sometimes. I enjoyed working in the lab a lot. And the time in the hospital was also exciting. I always found the duties in the emergency room particularly exciting. That was usually very exhausting, too. But I often think back to what I went through together with my colleagues.

But I'm very happy with what I'm doing here. The projects are exciting and varied. Of course, there are also schedules, but on the whole I can organize my time freely and work very independently. That's worth a lot to me.

Just like the good atmosphere and collegiality here. It's just nice to enjoy coming to work every day and to get along so well. Some of my colleagues have become good friends over time. That's very special.

The interview was conducted by Carola Schindler