New Position Alumna takes over management of the Academy for Health Professions

Care manager Anja König worked for many years at Heidelberg University Hospital and at the former nursing school

Congratulations to our alumna Anja König: The 57-year-old graduate in nursing management and human resources development took over as head of the Academy for Health Professions (AfG) in Heidelberg on 1 January 2026. The academy is the training and continuing education institution of Heidelberg University Hospital (UKHD) and the Evangelical City Mission Heidelberg, and one of the largest training centres for healthcare professions in Germany. Anja König worked for many years in various nursing roles at the UKHD. In the 1990s, she also completed further training as a nursing teacher at the University of Heidelberg Nursing School (USH), which later became part of the AfG, and subsequently worked as deputy head of the school.

In 2006, the nursing school and the health and nursing school at the UKHD, as well as the nursing school at Salem Hospital, were merged to form the Academy for Health Professions. The generalist training provided by the AfG is based on the founding principles of the nursing school known as the ‘Holly School’, which was established in 1953 at the suggestion and with the support of the US government and the Rockefeller Foundation as a model institution for the further development of nursing training in Germany. The institution, which was affiliated with the medical faculty, had given important impetus to the development of nursing science in Germany, even though the original intention of the school's initiators to provide university education had failed. As a compromise, the theoretical training, which was exceptionally comprehensive for the time and closely linked to practical experience, included university courses. From 1956 onwards, teachers for nursing professions were also trained.

Anja König moved from Klinikum Mittelbaden, where she had established a nursing management department in 2021, to take up the position of director at the academy. Prior to this, she held the position of head of quality and development in the nursing management department at UKHD from 2016 to 2020.  In her new position, she wants to rethink training and continuing education concepts in order to work with her team to make healthcare professions more attractive and future-proof.