馬斯特里赫特大學

The bachelor’s in Medicine addresses topical themes such as obesity and ageing. You’ll encounter real-life problems from your very first day. You’ll begin by acquiring different medical and practical skills in the Skills lab. During the first years of the programme, you’ll practice with, and on, your fellow students. Additionally, you’ll train other skills you’ll need as a doctor, such as presentation and conversation techniques, and how to handle an emotional response of a patient.

One of the most distinguishing features of the bachelor's in Medicine at Maastricht University is that it is practice-oriented. You start out practicing on fellow students, and learn things such as how to draw blood. Your contact with patients will initially be of an observational nature. As the programme progresses, you’ll gain more responsibility towards patients. In your second year, for example, you’ll do a 4-day ‘care internship’ in a nursing home to get acquainted with ‘real’ work in healthcare. In your third year, you’ll spend time in outpatient clinics.

The bachelor’s in Medicine will familiarise you with international aspects of the medical profession, such as intercultural communication. You’ll also have the opportunity to do parts of the programme abroad, and you'll come into contact with students who do an English version of the programme: the International Track in Medicine.

International Track in Medicine

Would you like to study medicine in an international context? Are you interested in the multicultural aspects of medicine? Or would you like to work abroad eventually? If so, you can also follow the English-language, international version of the Dutch bachelor's in Medicine, called ‘International Track in Medicine’ (ITM). This programme is almost identical to the Dutch degree in Medicine. The only difference resides in its focus on globalisation and international cooperation. ITM is a small-scale bachelor’s programme with year groups of approximately 50-80 students, a mixture of Dutch students, students from EU countries other than the Netherlands and students from the Arab world.

Career paths

Medical care

Once you begin working as a ‘non-specialised starting physician’ in the healthcare system, you'll often start out as a resident physician for a number of years, meaning you are training as a specialist in your chosen field. Your residency lasts between two and a half to six years, depending on the specialty. Once your training is finished and you are a specialist, you are fully responsible for the patient care you administer, typically in a hospital or a clinic. But you can also find work without becoming a specialist. If you work in an academic hospital, you work as an employee of the hospital. In a general (or district) hospital, you form a partnership with your colleagues and are actually an entrepreneur within the hospital. If you go for the two and a half-year specialisation in tropical medicine, you can choose to work for organisations such as Doctors without Borders.