High life in the lowlands

The Netherlands is a great place for an elective or even a medical career. Erlangga Yusuf tells you all you need to know

The Netherlands is a small European country, of no more than 42 000 km2, in which about 16 million people live. It is by far the most densely populated country in the European Union.1 Just like the United Kingdom, it is a constitutional monarchy. The capital is Amsterdam, but the government resides in the Hague.

The Netherlands was home to the painter Rembrandt, one of the Dutch masters, who celebrates his 400th birthday this year, and the country is also famous for tulips, which bloom each spring.

The Netherlands has eight medical faculties, two in Amsterdam and one in each of Rotterdam, Utrecht, Groningen, Maastricht, Nijmegen, and Leiden (table 1). Seven of these are part of the world's top 200 universities.2 To enter a medical school, you need to do well at secondary school. A minimum score of 8 out of 10 is needed to enter medical school directly. If your grade is less than 8, you must count on your luck: you need to participate in a national lottery weighted by score. A higher average mark means a better chance, and this game requires a score of at least 6. So, you also need to be lucky to become a doctor in the Netherlands. Because this system is unfair, the government is trying a system to let the universities select their students by their own criteria, but this new system is not yet widely accepted and used.3 Curriculums differ. Some, as at Maastricht University, teach using problem based learning,4 and in Amsterdam they are using a mixture of problem based and traditional teaching. Four years …