First Clinical Technology Master's students graduate in the LDE context

Thursday 3 September - Today the first year of Master's degree students in Clinical Technology is graduating under the joint programme of LUMC, TU Delft and Erasmus MC (LDE). To bridge the ever-widening gap between technological innovation and medicine, the new Clinical Technology programme within the LDE alliance was launched six years ago. This formed the introduction of the 'medtech professional' in the medical field. In particular, the Master's students are demonstrating their added value in the contribution they make to complex medical-technical issues, such as the optimisation or implementation of technology in hospitals. The graduation ceremony in the Academiegebouw in Leiden today is another milestone in the growth of this field since 1 July, following the first milestone of the BIG registration. 

Master's student Fons Wesselius: "When I was working on my graduation project, I discovered that papers on automatic detection of cardiac dysrhythmia either focus very much on the technical signal analysis or on the role of the cardiologist. As a Clinical Technologist you have the creativity to combine these points of view in order to actually innovate. In my graduation research, this led to a practical method for automatic detection of atrial fibrillation."

The collaboration between clinician and engineer is the key aspect of the Clinical Technology programme. During their clinical internships, the projects the students worked on included the development of a new ventilation method during the Corona crisis, the design of 3D-printed masks to prevent scarring after surgical facial reconstruction and devising a convenient way to automatically detect atrial fibrillation.

Jaap Harlaar, Clinical Technology programme director: "The students can be proud of themselves. During their studies, they often had to overcome their 'guinea pig status' and sometimes had to fight for their position in the medical team. This is an important day for them and for the programme. Clinical Technologists have emphatically put themselves in the picture: the programme has also graduated today, as it were".

Read interviews with the Master's students about their experiences (in Dutch)