Prof Dr David Klemperer is this year's winner of the Salomon Neumann Medal. The German Society for Social Medicine and Prevention (DGSMP) has been awarding the Salomon Neumann Medal for special services to preventive and social medicine since 1986. Salomon Neumann (1819-1908) was - alongside Rudolf Virchow - one of the most important representatives of social medicine, whose phrase ‘Medicine is a social science’ is embossed on the medal.
This year's prizewinner David Klemperer is a doctor (internist, specialist in public health, emergency physician, environmental and social physician) who works in practical patient care and as a well-founded expert in public health. As a university lecturer and book author, he plays an important role in public health and social medicine, and his work is recognised and appreciated far beyond the public health sector. Klemperer's textbook ‘Sozialmedizin - Public Health: Lehrbuch für Gesundheits- und Sozialberufe’ was first published in 2010 and is now in its fourth edition with the addition of ‘Gesundheitswissenschaften’.
David Klemperer began his career at OTH Regensburg in 2001 with his appointment as Professor of Social Medicine and Public Health. Until his retirement in 2019, he taught students of social work and the newly developed degree programmes in nursing, physiotherapy and speech therapy, including scientific work.
In his laudatory speech at the annual congress in Dresden, Prof Bernt-Peter Robra said: ‘More than others, Klemperer has mastered the synthesis of clinical, social and cultural perspectives towards a patient-oriented view of medicine. He places scientific evidence at the service of patients, the medical and social practice of medicine and other therapeutic professions.’
