As an educational developer and researcher, you concern yourself with optimizing the training of professionals to become the surgeon of the future. You will gain insight into both medical needs and technological possibilities, and throughout this project you will continue the search for a good balance between the two. Your findings will be incorporated into a dissertation which will be the basis for further research in this area. This dissertation will later also serve as a guideline for the surgeons who will be trained in these techniques. As an educational developer of image-guided surgery you will study the developments of minimally invasive surgery, and how to convert the needed skills into surgical training. You will do this by auditing the OR and by means of preclinical and phantom experiments. Specifically, you will look at defining scoring parameters (e.g. entrusted professional activities: EPA's) which help assess the surgeon's performance, and you will look at ways to use artificial intelligence (AI) to help. Based on this data, you will design a validated education program for high-tech surgical methods.

In short

·         You conduct research at the departments of Surgery, Radiology, and the Education Expertise Centre

·         You have access to the most modern techniques

·         You use technical innovation to improve the precision of surgical procedures

We are looking for an inventive, ambitious candidate with an MSc degree in Clinical Technology, Medicine, or a similar study. Affinity with medical research and education is an advantage. You are enthusiastic, driven, and accurate and you have excellent social and organizational skills.

Fixed-term contract: 3 years.

As a PhD candidate, you will principally be appointed for the duration of three years. Your salary is a maximum of € 2.495 in the first year, amounting to a maximum of € 3.196 in the final year (scale PhD students, Collective Labour Agreement University Medical Centers).

LUMC

At the Leiden University Medical Center, we continuously work on improving patient care. We invest in groundbreaking, international research and work with the latest equipment. Together with our team of doctors, medical specialists, teachers, academic researchers and supporting staff, we aim for the best quality in health care, education and international research. And we need you to realize our goals!

Surgery department

You’re part of the Surgery department and you will work closely together with surgeons specialized in robot-guided and image-guided surgery. You will also maintain a close collaboration with the Interventional Molecular Imaging Laboratory (IMI-Lab); a multidisciplinary research team which is part of the Radiology department. For preclinical evaluation and surgical training there is a close collaboration with the Incision Academy (Amsterdam) and the ORSI Academy (Melle, Belgium). In addition, you are in close contact with the Education Expertise Center which is part of the Directorate of Education and Study Programmes.