NL
DE
7 June 2018
Thursday 31 May 10 a.m.: 95 professors left, on their Radboud bikes, in their gowns, to talk about research with more than 2000 primary school children at 95 schools in and around Nijmegen. Like 5 years ago (when 90 professor visited 90 schools), I was one of those privileged professors.
Just before 11 am I entered, still in my gown, group 7 of De Klokkenberg in Nijmegen Oost. They knew that a professor would visit them, but not that I was the one. Some were surprised to see a relatively younger women as they had received some information about the demographics of me and my colleagues and they had learned that most were male, most were aged 55 years or older, and brown was the dominant hair color. So one of the first questions they asked me was whether the University had done their statistics right, because most males above 55 years would be grey in their opinion.
After a short explanation about the gown, I was happy to continue without it. The children, however, were very keen to wear it, and while I was talking about the operating room of the future, they helped each other very quietly with getting dressed. I was impressed by their knowledge, e.g. they could explain difficult terms as gamification, prevention, artificial intelligence, and even cost-effectiveness. They even corrected me when I tried to explain how expensive a DaVinci robot is. I had thought to translate this into a number of iPhones, i.e. 1 DaVinci = 4000 iPhones. Of course, they immediately asked which version, and when I confessed that I had used a price of 500 Euro’s, they did not think that was a real iPhone.
The visit ended with an experiment in which they had study which of the two identical sweets (smarties and a look a like house brand), which were in two identical plastic containers, looked and tasted better. With some help they really got to the principles of a randomized blinded trial. However, when I explained that blinding is often not possible in surgical trial because anesthesia is not completely risk-free, two children said their parents were very good anesthesiologist in our Radboudumc, so next time I could certainly perform a double blind trial.
On my way back, without toga but on my Radboud bike, I couldn’t stop smiling. The children had been so enthusiastic, interested, curious, unaffected and free of mind. I wish our students were like that all the time! It also reminded me how important it is to never lose the child in yourself!
Maroeska Rovers
Theme Urological cancers
When I told my son I would come in his class as professor, he complained. “Gosh, all classes get a professional professor and we get you”. Yet, I must say, the class was very welcoming to this amateur professor. After an introduction what a professor does, I explained them about my research area: spending health care money wisely. They did quite well in estimating the average income of a Dutch family (some €36,000), but grossly underestimated how much of that is spent on health care (some 30%). And to their dismay, they accepted the economic principle of opportunity costs: I told them that money spent on health care, cannot be spent on Playstation games of holidays. In the second part of the lesson, three biomedical students, who accompanied me to the class, simulated patients. The class had to divide budget between these patients. Interestingly, the 10-years old pupils could very well provide arguments in choosing between e.g. the costly treatment of a rare disease versus the provision of better elderly care. The event ended with a nice lunch at the campus, where participating professors shared their enthusiasm about their school visits. And at the end of the day, even my son had to admit he enjoyed the lesson. So all in all, a successful event, and thumbs up to the organizers for organizing this so smoothly!
Rob Baltussen
theme Infectious diseases and global health
RIHS professors who joined:
Rob Baltussen
Jan Bussink
Reinout van Crevel
Bram van Ginneken
Jacqueline de Graaf
Frank van den Hoogen
Bart Kiemeney
Chris de Korte
Jeroen Meijerink
Maria van den Muijsenbergh
Ria Nijhuis-van der Sanden
Camiel Rosman
Maroeska Rovers
On Thursday 31 May, Radboud professors stepped on their bikes to visit primary schools in the Nijmegen region. RIHS professors Maroeska Rovers and Rob Baltussen share their experiences.
Thursday 31 May 10 a.m.: 95 professors left, on their Radboud bikes, in their gowns, to talk about research with more than 2000 primary school children at 95 schools in and around Nijmegen. Like 5 years ago (when 90 professor visited 90 schools), I was one of those privileged professors.
Just before 11 am I entered, still in my gown, group 7 of De Klokkenberg in Nijmegen Oost. They knew that a professor would visit them, but not that I was the one. Some were surprised to see a relatively younger women as they had received some information about the demographics of me and my colleagues and they had learned that most were male, most were aged 55 years or older, and brown was the dominant hair color. So one of the first questions they asked me was whether the University had done their statistics right, because most males above 55 years would be grey in their opinion.
After a short explanation about the gown, I was happy to continue without it. The children, however, were very keen to wear it, and while I was talking about the operating room of the future, they helped each other very quietly with getting dressed. I was impressed by their knowledge, e.g. they could explain difficult terms as gamification, prevention, artificial intelligence, and even cost-effectiveness. They even corrected me when I tried to explain how expensive a DaVinci robot is. I had thought to translate this into a number of iPhones, i.e. 1 DaVinci = 4000 iPhones. Of course, they immediately asked which version, and when I confessed that I had used a price of 500 Euro’s, they did not think that was a real iPhone.
The visit ended with an experiment in which they had study which of the two identical sweets (smarties and a look a like house brand), which were in two identical plastic containers, looked and tasted better. With some help they really got to the principles of a randomized blinded trial. However, when I explained that blinding is often not possible in surgical trial because anesthesia is not completely risk-free, two children said their parents were very good anesthesiologist in our Radboudumc, so next time I could certainly perform a double blind trial.
On my way back, without toga but on my Radboud bike, I couldn’t stop smiling. The children had been so enthusiastic, interested, curious, unaffected and free of mind. I wish our students were like that all the time! It also reminded me how important it is to never lose the child in yourself!
Maroeska Rovers
Theme Urological cancers
When I told my son I would come in his class as professor, he complained. “Gosh, all classes get a professional professor and we get you”. Yet, I must say, the class was very welcoming to this amateur professor. After an introduction what a professor does, I explained them about my research area: spending health care money wisely. They did quite well in estimating the average income of a Dutch family (some €36,000), but grossly underestimated how much of that is spent on health care (some 30%). And to their dismay, they accepted the economic principle of opportunity costs: I told them that money spent on health care, cannot be spent on Playstation games of holidays. In the second part of the lesson, three biomedical students, who accompanied me to the class, simulated patients. The class had to divide budget between these patients. Interestingly, the 10-years old pupils could very well provide arguments in choosing between e.g. the costly treatment of a rare disease versus the provision of better elderly care. The event ended with a nice lunch at the campus, where participating professors shared their enthusiasm about their school visits. And at the end of the day, even my son had to admit he enjoyed the lesson. So all in all, a successful event, and thumbs up to the organizers for organizing this so smoothly!
Rob Baltussen
theme Infectious diseases and global health
RIHS professors who joined:
Rob Baltussen
Jan Bussink
Reinout van Crevel
Bram van Ginneken
Jacqueline de Graaf
Frank van den Hoogen
Bart Kiemeney
Chris de Korte
Jeroen Meijerink
Maria van den Muijsenbergh
Ria Nijhuis-van der Sanden
Camiel Rosman
Maroeska Rovers
Related news items
A great technology creating new dilemmas
20 December 2022Healthcare professionals are increasingly uncovering ‘unsolicited findings’ when performing a genetic test, which are disease-causing genetic variants unrelated to the initial question for which the genetic test was performed. This increase has led to a worldwide debate.
read more
