After their first six years of studying, Medical students have to make critical career choices: what are they going to specialize in? Making this choice requires affinity with one of the specializations. Oddly enough, near the end of their bachelors, most students are still in the dark about which specialization suits them best. Something the Dutch Association for Trauma Surgery (NVT) would like to change by handing out free memberships for interested students. We spoke with NVT board members Nikki Buijs and Siebe de Boer about the initiative.
Exploring your future career field as a Medical student can be tough: internist, trauma surgeon, dermatologist or cardiologist. So many options. Associations like the NVT can be a big help: ‘Being an NVT member is a great way to increase your affinity with trauma surgery, or to discover at an early stage that another specialization may suit you better, which is fine!’, says de Boer. NVT can also help out in the network department. ‘Associations have a certain structure. You know who your colleagues are and what the newest research in your field is about. It’s hard to discover this on your own: Bumping into the right people, at the right time, is difficult’, Buijs adds.
The free aspirant memberships have only been available for a couple of weeks. Before, it was not possible for students to join the association. ‘As board members, Nikki and I found it necessary to change this. Medical students are not thinking about the advantages and activities of the NVT. During my studies, I wasn’t even aware of the existence of such associations’, De Boer shares.
This is an experience that Pim van Bunnik, a third-year UvA Medical student, shares: ‘I have never heard of such an association.’ Van Bunnik describes that during his bachelor teachers barely explained anything about the future of his career. ‘The teachers are not putting much effort into explaining the different specializations, although this is a crucial choice for the rest of my career’, says Van Bunnik. Another third-year Medical student at the UvA, Titia Sulzer adds: ‘The only thing my teachers really told me about the future is that at best a handful of students would become specialists. The rest would remain general practitioners.’
If the teachers are not helping out, could associations like the NVT offer these students much needed career information? Buijs believe they can: ‘For students who are eager to know more about their future, talking with professionals in your field of interest can be of tremendous help. However, NVT membership does not assure a clear paved way to becoming a trauma surgeon. It will not speed up your career plans, but can help with making sense of them.’
How do students feel about the need for such a free membership? Sulzer agrees with Buijs that ‘such a membership could give students some inside information that they won’t get during their regular courses.’ Van Bunnik knows for sure that he won’t sign up. ‘Trauma surgery is not for me. I don’t like cutting into things…’
Do you want to become a member of the NVT? You can sign up here!
*Nikki Buijs recently left the NVT board to become a full-time trauma surgeon. Congratulations!*