Prof. dr. Mirjam oude Egbrink awarded MUMC+-medal

The award recognises Mirjam's legacy in research, education and the lives of teachers and students. Just a few months ago, Mirjam was awarded the Grand Education Prize by the Institute of Education. Mirjam: "I already felt greatly honoured that my work as Director of Medicine and Scientific Director at the Institute of Education was appreciated." The MUMC+ medal is awarded for her work within the Faculty Board as vice-dean of education. To read more about Mirjam's career, you can read her interview in the Education Matters magazine.

In the first half of her career, she was mainly active as a researcher at CARIM, where she also supervised various PhD tracks. At the same time, she also fulfilled many roles in education. Since becoming Director of Medicine Education and later Scientific Director of the Education Institute, her focus in the field of research has increasingly shifted towards education within SHE. She completed a master's degree in Health Professions Education and progressed through all the stages of a career in education. Throughout this time, Mirjam was a strong advocate for the importance of education within MUMC+. "Education, research and patient care are the three important tasks of a UMC, but education is unjustly less valued and recognised than research and care. Everyone actually agrees with this, but in reality, little seems to be changing."

By continuously advocating for the importance of education within the faculty and MUMC+, she hoped to raise awareness about this issue. "Serious recognition and appreciation of employees for their commitment to education will increase intrinsic motivation for education and, with it, job satisfaction. This, in turn, will benefit the quality of education. It's a win-win situation that we must continue to encourage and cherish. Fortunately, the board also supports this, and we have already made great strides together."

Text continues below the image.

During her farewell lecture, Mirjam spoke about the art of balancing. "There are four major themes within the faculty that I believe need to be balanced: balance between the appreciation of education, research and care, between work pressure and job satisfaction, between costs and benefits, and between educational research and educational practice." Mirjam worked on the latter balancing act as professor of Implementation of Educational Innovations and as a researcher for the School of Health Professions Education (SHE). You can watch the livestream of the farewell speech here.

Throughout her career, Mirjam remained actively involved in research and teaching, keeping her feet firmly on the ground and close to her students. This helped her to continuously work on improving, innovating and safeguarding the quality of education. We are now saying goodbye to Mirjam as a colleague, but not to her influence on education. That remains embedded in our systems and in our people.

Text: Ruben Beeckman
Pictures: Renskephotos.nl