Master track: Personalized Monitoring and Coaching
Last September I started the master Health Sciences here at the University of Twente. I did my Bachelor program Health Sciences and master Health Care Management at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. I learned a lot about the policy and management side of healthcare in Rotterdam, but I wanted to expand my knowledge with the more technical side. I foresee that technology and especially eHealth will play a major part in future healthcare. Currently, not all healthcare organizations have people with the knowledge to help them to incorporate eHealth technologies in their daily care practice. I wanted to learn more about eHealth, to help healthcare organizations with this step to the future. Since the University of Twente is an expert in combining technology with human factors, it was the obvious choice for me.
Health Sciences at UT: Wonderful Experience
Following the master Health Sciences at the University of Twente has been a wonderful experience. In the first semester we started with three general courses, to give every student the same foundation of knowledge and skills. The second semester is the specialization semester. Here you follow courses of the specialization track of your choice. Since the track Personalized Monitoring and Coaching has its main focus on eHealth, I chose this track. We were with a small group of 15 people, and learned about various sides of the technology, design, implementation and use of eHealth. For me this was the perfect combination of the technical side of eHealth and the more human challenges of healthcare. The last half year I worked on my thesis. My thesis was about the design of a Virtual Reality application for forensic mental healthcare. In this period I could apply the lessons learned in the master in practice. In my case, the thesis was combined with an internship in a forensic mental healthcare organization. This gave me an opportunity to learn more closely about eHealth development in the healthcare practice.
After my master
After my master I have many career options, due to the combination of the more general courses and the specialization track. For example working at a healthcare organization as a policymaker, working at the ministry of healthcare, working for a consultancy, working in research and many more options. I found a job at a consultancy where the knowledge of technology and healthcare is combined.