National research area Medical Tourism

On February 5, 2021, the Generalanzeiger wrote: "Juszczak advised numerous stakeholders, from the Federal Government's Scientific Service to various embassies, state governments, the EU and, of course, hospitals. The expert therefore leaves a big gap not only in his private life, but also in research and consulting: His plan to establish a National Research Center for Medical Tourism at the university was still in its infancy. As he had no staff of his own, it will probably be a while before a successor can tap into his large network." (Kubik, L.)

As the successor to Jens Juszczak Ⴕ, Mariam Asefi has been working as a freelance research assistant in the Medical Tourism research area at the Department of Economics at H-BRS since June 2021. In one way or another, this is not a new start. Even as a student, she worked and researched as an employee alongside her studies at H-BRS on many projects for Germany's most important expert in medical tourism.

Mariam Asefi was born in Kabul/Afghanistan. She began her business studies at the Bocholt University of Applied Sciences, which she continued at the Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences. She worked numerous part-time jobs during her time at school and during her studies, for example as a freelancer in retail, in the event sector, in gastronomy and also in the hotel industry. This is why she was interested in the working title; Arab patients in the German hotel industry, for her first term paper. It was there in 2007 that she first met Jens Juszczak Ⴕ and the niche topic of medical tourism, which has accompanied her to this day and shaped her professional career to date.

At the beginning of 2008, she began working as a student research assistant for the medical tourism research area for the first time and supervised practical projects such as "Health tourism along the Cologne-Bonn-Düsseldorf Rhine route" - awarded by 365 Landmarks Land of Ideas in 2011 or the collaboration in the development and creation of a medical tourism quality seal. The tasks of market research and analysis in the field of medical tourism, the planning and implementation of medical tourism congresses, the regular working groups or workshops were also part of the tasks as well as the cooperation in the support of the then website of the research area in medical tourism. She also worked as a freelancer for the company TrueFruits GmbH. There she took on sales tasks and the promotion of smoothies. She then traveled to the UAE for an internship semester in Dubai and worked at the German-Emirati Chamber of Industry and Commerce (AHK). After submitting her diploma thesis entitled "Development and process analysis of an international office - using the example of the Arabian market". She then went on to work for various leading German hospital groups in their international offices at management level.

Through joint projects and workshops with Jens Jusczczak Ⴕ she has many years of experience as a trainer for;

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• Insight into international health tourism
• Quality management and accreditation for international offices
• Intercultural marketing for international offices
• Treatment process for international patients
• Intercultural workshops for dealing with foreign patients from the Arab world

In addition to her many years of scientific expertise in medical tourism, she can draw on a wealth of experience from direct practical work.

As the successor to Jens Juszczak Ⴕ, she would like to maintain "his" area of research. This includes publishing the annually evaluated data for medical tourism in Germany, continuing "his" working groups, workshops and networks. The establishment, expansion and PR of the German Competence Center for Medical Tourism at the university. Due to the always close personal exchange with him, she knows which projects he still had planned and she tries to follow these ideas and plans. She recently published the practical handbook on medical tourismdedicated to Jens Juszczak Ⴕ on October 14, 2022.

"He was and remains their foster father in medical tourism"