Bio-Tech-Med Interdisciplinary Team Training

Period (from – till): 11 February - 01 August 2025 (BMS_P3_A)Faculty
drs. R.R. de Jonge, course coordinator.
S. ter Meulen-de Jong, UMCU and GSLS.
B. Arets, SUMMA,
A. Berendts, Nutrition and health, WUR
Course description
Challenged based learning! In this course you create solutions to a disease-related problem. Together with Master's students from the Graduate School of Life Sciences, Medicine Master ‘SUMMA’, Health and Nutrition, WUR, and Bio-engineering, Technical University Eindhoven, you obtain the skills to work in an interdisciplinary team and work towards a solution for a current health problem.
The overarching aim is, that future doctors, health scientists, bio-engineers, and biomedical scientists will collaborate and obtain interdisciplinary skills.
You will work in small interdisciplinary groups guided by experts in the fields of biomed/tech/nutrition. The course starts on February 11 with an introduction to the challenge and further consists of four plenary meeting days (13 February, 27 February, 13 March, and 27 March) at one of the participating institutes. In between these plenary meeting days, you will continue working together at a distance to keep the project going. Several Q&A and tutor sessions or pitch training will support you.
Within this elective course you will learn among others about interdisciplinary collaborative skills, design thinking, brainstorming, pitching potential solutions, entrepreneurship, and patient perspectives. Literature/study material used:
Primary literature

Activities
Participate in interdisciplinary (boundary crossing) teamwork.
Attend three plenary days (lectures, interactive sessions, workshops).
Pitch your final solution by using a poster.
Work on your boundary crossing learning objective and write a reflection paper on this.

During the entire course you will perform group work alongside self-study for about 40 hours.

Examination
Attendance and Active Participation (P/F)
Interdisciplinary competences (P/F)
Reflection report (P/F)
Communication/team work skills (P/F)
Poster
Team pitch
Individual written report

Contact email address
r.r.dejonge-2@umcutrecht.nl

Registration:
You can register for this course via here on the Students' site.
Additionally, you are required to send an e-mail to the course coordinator, specifying the course code, the Master's programme you participate in and your background (biomedical/medical/technical).

Mandatory for students in own Master’s programme
No

Optional for students in other GSLS Master’s programmes
Yes, for all GSLS students

Prerequisite knowledge
None.
Other remarks
This 5 EC course is an extension to the 3 EC (BITT course, BMB529019). The extension consists of an individual assignment that focuses on the inclusion of additional disciplines in the proposed solution.

Primary learning objectives
At the end of the course, the student is able to:

• Translate an existing disease-related problem into a well formulated problem definition;

• Formulate, pitch, and defend a proposal that is scientifically sound, feasible, innovative, and interdisciplinary, which answers the formulated problem definition;

• Reflect on his/her personal interdisciplinary communication and collaboration, and on the added value of an interdisciplinary approach to solve a disease-related challenge.

Secondary learning objectives
At the end of the course, the student is able to:

• Take into account the patient perspective in the disease-related challenge;
• To identify stakeholders and describe how they are involved in the proposed solution for the disease-related challenge;
• Provide a professional contribution to the group dynamics;
• Collaborate effectively while working in geographically distant settings and within a limited time frame;
• pitch his/her idea to a public of laymen.

You will be enrolled for this course by administration of the programme of this course.