'Be daring and think big'
Jelle Scheurleer - MBRT lecturer and co-ordinator post-Bachelor radiotherapy modules
"More than ten years ago, the Inholland Medical Technology research team had a dream. It was our ambitious plan to develop international Master's modules in the field of radiotherapy – not simply classes, but modules through which we sought intensive collaboration with renowned hospitals and the sector. A special segment of each of the modules was an intensive 'hands-on' course lasting one week, during which students worked alongside experts from the professional field.
We started with three modules in 2007. I truly enjoyed contributing to this, as radiotherapy and education are both close to my heart, but I also had grave doubts. I wondered whether knowledge enterprises from the sector were interested in a continuous collaboration and whether we could tempt enough international students to come to the Netherlands. How viable would the modules be in the long term?
Setting up our new and international Master's modules has turned out to be a great learning process for me. What I learned was to be daring and think big: making choices, taking risks and pursuing your own vision.
One of the three modules has fallen by the wayside, but after more than ten years the other two are still going strong. Dozens of international students come to Inholland to study here, to collaborate with medical experts and gain experience in using the latest techniques. Companies such as Philips, Varian, Elekta, Raysearch, Accuray and Brainlab have been highly motivated partners for years and provide experts and equipment for the 'hands-on' course. Meanwhile, we have welcomed students from Europe, Africa, South America, Asia and Australia. Worldwide, there are only a few courses available on the subject of radiotherapy in which students, hospital experts and application specialists from the industry work together so intensively to exchange knowledge.
For me personally, it has been a wonderful learning process. What I learned was to be daring and think big: making choices, taking risks and pursuing your own vision. In addition to remaining true to myself, I also had to listen to what those in my environment needed. What did they need? How could we help one another? The good thing about this process is that I have managed to overcome my own doubts from the starting phase and that I have become more and more convinced that Inholland has something unique to offer. Through these international radiotherapy Master's modules, we stand out as a university of applied sciences and provide the same quality as the business community. Talk about daring. This is what learning can do for you.'
Through health care programmes such as Medical Imaging and Radiotherapy Techniques, Inholland University of Applied Sciences contributes to The Healthy Society, one of its key themes. A Healthy Society is a society in which citizens with physical, psychological and social disadvantages can participate and lead as healthy and sociable a life as possible. A society focussed on people in their social environment, in which both preventive care and post-intervention professionals encourage and support the development of self-management and empowerment. These professionals work on the basis of an interprofessional collaboration and make use of the latest (technological) innovations.