Associate professor Martien van Dongen:
“Epidemiology hopes to draw more master’s students”
Epidemiological education in Maastricht is on the brink of major change. “We hope to draw more master’s students by restructuring the academic programme. We are thinking of introducing more short-term courses to the master’s programmes,” explains Martien van Dongen, winner of this year’s FHML Education Award.
Associate professor Martien van Dongen is co-ordinator of the epidemiology master’s programme and profile co-ordinator of clinical epidemiology for the two-year health sciences research master. He claims a programme restructure will allow them to better anticipate the needs of students and introducing short-term master’s courses would enable non-degree seeking students to enrol as well. “For non-degree seeking students this would be a certificate course, whereas master’s students would follow it as part of their degree programme. We are also considering presenting the subjects differently to better integrate content and approach.”
Van Dongen studied at the Agricultural University in Wageningen and then went on to become a temporary research and teaching assistant at the medical faculty of the Catholic University of Nijmegen. In 1981, he was approached by Ferd Sturmans to fill an assistant professor position in Maastricht, where epidemiological education still had to be established. He gladly accepted the invitation, as both the Faculty of Health Sciences and the problem-based learning method greatly appealed to him. Moreover, he had specialised in epidemiology as a student of Ferd Sturmans in Wageningen.
Foundation
Martien van Dongen was therefore at the heart of epidemiological education in Maastricht. He designed courses, gave lectures and developed academic materials. His other fields of specialisation, nutrition and public health in developed and developing countries, also received a great deal of attention. Van Dongen was chair of the Examination Committee of the Health Sciences faculty from 1986 to 1990. “At its core, this position requires you to monitor the quality of a programme.” More room for research was created in the nineties. In 1999, he received a degree for his research on the effects of Ginkgo biloba on elderly people with early-stage dementia or memory impairment. Although he continues to conduct research today, he now dedicates two-thirds of his time to education. “It’s great when you can impart knowledge, especially in epidemiology because it involves research, which is something students tend to find difficult.”
It is also becoming increasingly difficult to hold a student’s attention. “Students today are not worse, but our visual culture demands that you wrap it up in an interesting story, otherwise the message won’t come across. Form and presentation are very important nowadays.” The way students write has also changed dramatically. “Social media has changed the way students communicate, which is reflected in their writing. Time pressure is also an important issue. Students simply have less time to study and long-term students are now getting fined. This concerns me because students should be given plenty of time to think and reflect.”
Marketing
What he finds particularly difficult to understand is the role marketing has been given in education. “I understand that we need to sell ourselves to the outside world, but I’m not very good at it. I believe if it’s good, it’ll sell itself. But that’s not enough these days. We have to profile ourselves, especially in an academic culture with so many options.”
Educational cutbacks have also forced Van Dongen and his colleagues to actively profile themselves and reform education. In the decision to maintain certain academic programmes, an influential question is which programmes draw the most students. “This is not good for epidemiology because it involves research, which is something that students find difficult to identify with in the first half of the programme. Their interest is only sparked when they actually work in the field. It’s our job to show them that research is fun and can give them the chance to contribute to finding healthcare solutions.”