More inclusive

Faculty of Medicine changes name to Faculty of Medical Sciences

Hijmans van den Berghgebouw van Geneeskunde. Foto: DUB Archief
The Hijmans van den Bergh building, used by the Faculty of Medicine. Photo: DUB Archive

The Faculty of Medicine will change its name to Faculty of Medical Sciences at the request of the student council. The idea is to increase a sense of belonging among students from the other programmes offered by the faculty, such as Biomedical Sciences. It is unclear when the name change will be implemented, but it could take several years.

News
By ,
on 07/04/2024 - 13:06
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Last year, student members of the Faculty Council 2022-2023 proposed changing the faculty's name because Faculty of Medicine implies that only the Medicine programme is offered there. 

According to the chair of the current student council, Evan Djajadi, students and employees of the Biomedical Sciences programme, the Master's programme in Clinical Health Sciences, and the Graduate School of Life Sciences do not always feel represented. Hence the need for a name change. 

More inclusive
The current student council also supports the idea. Evan: “The name Medical Sciences is more inclusive as all programmes fit under this name. All programmes should feel represented by the faculty. The efforts of our predecessors have helped, which is nice." The student members also hope the name change will inspire more students to join or vote for the council. In the last elections, only 6.4 percent of the faculty's students voted. 

Implementation
It may take some time before the faculty changes its name, though. Since "Faculty of Medicine" is mentioned in many places, including official documents and diplomas, changing the name is actually a lot of work. An implementation plan is currently being drawn up. It will be submitted to the faculty council in the next academic year, 2024-2025. The name change will happen at some point in the next few years. It is still unclear in which academic year this will happen.

Tags: faculteit geneeskunde | geneeskunde

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