The world does not stand still and healthcare is also changing. People are getting older, care is increasingly moving from health care centers to the patient’s home, there is more attention on health promotion and prevention and technological developments are following each other at a rapid pace. There are also new perspectives on learning and work that are finding their way to higher education and the UMCs. At the LUMC we train doctors who are ready for the future
What is left?
Complete training as a general practitioner. The master’s program consists of an established program of internships in years one and two. These take place at the LUMC and in the area, in one of the teaching hospitals, or outside the hospital. The third year, which includes a science internship and several optional internships, offers many opportunities for professional guidance, deepening and internationalization. The workshops are characterized by preparatory teaching weeks with ‘just in time’ education, where students learn what they need at that time. Another feature is on-the-job learning with individual guidance at the internship centers. This gives us a solid foundation for further medical training and other career paths.
What will be different?
The 2024 curriculum will pay more attention to professional development, career guidance, outpatient care (care outside the hospital), health, prevention and social topics.
- Professional development
Feedback is essential for the learning process and plays a central role in the management of the internships. Students are in control of their own learning process (autonomous learning) and can also work on personal learning goals. We strive for a safe, supportive learning environment, where you can also learn from things that don’t go well. Just as in further medical training, trust professional activities (EPAs) play a role in developing competencies for general practitioners. EPAs are professional tasks or responsibilities that are assigned if you master them sufficiently and the level provides information where you stand. The new digital portfolio (eJournal) makes it possible to collect feedback, EPAs and other information and also shows how the student is developing. Finally, there are no more detailed evaluation levels, the workplaces are evaluated as satisfied or not satisfied the cum laude scheme has come to an end.
- Career guidance
This becomes a permanent part of every internship and mentorship conversation. In addition, there are orientation weeks, when students do an internship in a specialty that is not a permanent part of the regular internships. This gives students a wider view of lesser-known career perspectives and allows them to better decide which career path is right for them. - External care
Most doctors in the Netherlands work outside the hospital. That is why there is more time for extramural internships in geriatric, social and general medicine. We also look beyond the ‘hospital walls’, where a patient is followed, for example during a rehabilitation process or in a home setting.
- Comprehensive coverage of health and prevention, and other topics
The Health and Prevention internship is new in the master’s program and takes place on the Health Campus in The Hague, which is connected to the LUMC. Students spend two weeks studying various aspects of (public) health, lifestyle, prevention and population health (examining the transition from health to disease at population level and possible interventions). Health, prevention and lifestyle are also taken into account in all other internships. In addition, the topics of diversity and inclusion, planetary health and technology & AI are specifically addressed in the renewed master. - MasterMinds Challenge
In the revised master’s degree, students participate in two MasterMindsChallenges (MMC). In the MMCs, students will be educated in design thinking where they will find creative solutions to social issues and problems in health care. Experience shows that students often come up with ‘out of the box’ solutions. The MMC in the first year focuses mainly on questions from social institutions in Leiden and The Hague and students enter the community. The MMC in year three focuses more on issues from healthcare practice. Interprofessional learning enhances the creative process and that is why medical students work together with students from other programs in the MMC and at other times.
The first two months behind us
The curriculum is evaluated shortly after each internship to hear what is going well and to identify areas for improvement as soon as possible. In addition, the usual quality cycle with audits, panel discussions and audit rounds continues. The initial internship has now been completed, the comments have been mostly positive and work is also underway on the first points of improvement.
2024-11-04 08:42:00
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