With the inclusion in Article 36a of the Individual Health Care Professions Act (Wet BIG), the government and the medical profession confirm their faith in the skills of technical physicians. Technical Medicine at the University of Twente is the only technical medical degree programme in the world in which students can obtain a qualification to treat patients independently. A technical physician can use the technical innovations in the healthcare sector in the best possible way in order to improve a patient's health and safety. In doing so, he or she performs medical procedures, such as surgical procedures, catherizations and endoscopies. So medical specialists have a new colleague.
‘Regular medical degree programmes are not technical’, says Heleen Miedema, programme director. ’Whereas a physician's profession becomes increasingly technological and the pace of new technical-medical innovations is ever increasing. Our graduates can think and work as a physician and as an engineer.’
Technical Medicine
The Technical Medicine degree programme was started at the University of Twente in 2003 with the approval of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport. In 2013 and 2014, the Selection Guide for Higher Professional Education (Keuzegids Hoger Onderwijs) awarded the degree programme the designation 'Top Degree Programme'. This quality is partly due to its unique simulation centre for complex medical procedures with a simulated intensive care unit and an operating room.
There are now 140 graduated technical physicians, 50% female and 50% male. Almost all graduates already have a job before their graduation. Most of them work in academic hospitals in the Netherlands. Medical specialists from abroad are enthusiastic as well. Hospitals in London, Singapore and New Haven (Yale), among others, now have regular internship posts and work placements available.
Innovation in the healthcare sector
Technical Physicians have, for example, played a major role in the development of new procedures for an accurate treatment of prostate tumours in MRI scanners. Dr. Jurgen Fütterer, intervention radiologist at Radboud UMC in Nijmegen is very enthusiastic about this development: “Because of the efforts made by various technical physicians within our department, we have considerably increased the quality of this treatment”.
The Individual Health Care Professions Act
The Individual Health Care Professions Act monitors the quality of individual care providers such as medical specialists, thereby protecting patients against incompetent or negligent actions. Technical physicians are qualified for five years under the protected title of Clinical Technologist. After this period, their medical procedures will be evaluated in order to convert their temporary qualification into a final qualification.
A new professional association: the NVvTG
A new profession also requires a new professional association. The Netherlands Association for Technical Medicine (Nederlandse Vereniging voor Technische Geneeskunde, NVvTG) represents the interests of technical physicians and monitors the quality of their actions in medical practice. The NVvTG is also responsible for accreditation of further training.
More information:
Kirsten Voncken (Marketing & Communication University of Twente)
Mobile telephone: +316-53608512
E-mail: K.J.L.Voncken@Utwente.nl
Website: www.utwente.nl/tg
