Chaja van der Veer, 24 years 

2nd year PBH and student-assistant for Medicine 

Hi! My name is Chaja and I have started the master’s Philosophy, Bioethics and Health in 2020. I chose to do this master directly after my bachelor’s and before starting my rounds, and I requested a prolonged waiting time for this. During my bachelor’s, I found that Medicine was very interesting, but also that I wanted to learn to think more about health care as well. I sought this depth in my minor, which was the deciding factor for doing a second master’s next to my rounds. Because I was still somewhat in doubt about starting my rounds at that time, I decided to do PBH first. Now I am sure I want to combine the two programs, so I will start my rounds soon.

During PBH I learned what I hoped for: to ask more questions about what and why you do things in health care. What are the foundations for certain health care systems, and what are the consequences for the way we see health and disease? What are the underlying reasons for inequal distribution of health and health care, and what are the consequences? Moreover, I learned to think more abstractly in my philosophy courses, in order to relate this to the more practical information and attitude that one develops during Medicine. I have experienced PBH as a very pleasant detour, where I learned to really think for myself and establish new connections. Besides I really appreciated to work with different people and to see how everyone is looking for the connections of this new and abstract thinking with their own (scientifically) practical background. I would highly recommend this master’s if you want to learn and think more outside your own medical actions and education!