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CAREER FEATURE

How a four-year-old boy connects healthcare, biomedical research and undergraduate education

Nature Biotechnology volume 37, pages 1092–1095 (2019)Cite this article

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Patients with unknown disease can serve as an educational catalyst in biomedical sciences to create strong synergy between healthcare, research and undergraduate education, with the goal of fostering translational medicine and helping patients.

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Fig. 1: The patient with his father (right) and the medical doctors/(clinician-)scientists (left) sitting in the lecture hall together with 96 biomedical students.
Fig. 2

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Acknowledgements

We thank the patient, his parents and family, and all (clinician-)scientists, medical doctors and students who participated in the Pathology course. We acknowledge the University Medical Centre Utrecht, the Faculty of Medicine, and Utrecht University for their support. Finally, we thank M. Kluijtmans (Utrecht University) for critical reading of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Undergraduate student, Biomedical Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Rijkent H. Drost

  2. Centre for Education, University Medical Centre Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Wim J. A. G. Dictus, Berent J. Prakken & Niels Bovenschen

  3. Centre for Academic Teaching, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Niels Bovenschen

  4. Department of Pathology, University Medical Centre Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Niels Bovenschen

  5. Laboratory of Translational Immunology, University Medical Centre Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Niels Bovenschen

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  1. Rijkent H. Drost
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  2. Wim J. A. G. Dictus
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  3. Berent J. Prakken
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  4. Niels Bovenschen
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Correspondence to Niels Bovenschen.

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Drost, R.H., Dictus, W.J.A.G., Prakken, B.J. et al. How a four-year-old boy connects healthcare, biomedical research and undergraduate education. Nat Biotechnol 37, 1092–1095 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-019-0245-5

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