Employee in the spotlight: Benjamin Gravesteijn

It has always been a lifegoal of me to make an impression on people’s lives. It’s what made the choice for me to pursue a medical career, and even much so, to do medical research. What day-to-day patient care lacks for me, is systematic reflection, and the ability to ascertain ground-truths. Therefore, the PhD in the medical decision making group at the department of Public Health is a match made in heaven for me.

The digital revolution in medicine has the great promise to make health care more efficacious, effective, and efficient: to treat patients with interventions that show the desired result, that work in practice, and are cost-effective. The premise is that by using large datasets of routinely collected data, we can optimize health care. In my PhD, I explore multiple ways to translate those data into knowledge, with the focus on acute medicine: general trauma, traumatic brain injury, and in-hospital cardiac arrest. The main three questions I try to answer in my thesis are 1) what is the current practice, and what outcome is the result of current practice?; 2) what is the best practice, or what should we do?; and 3) what patients are at risk, or: who do we need to prioritize?. 

I will complete my thesis this year, next to finishing medical school. After that, I would like to continue in the direction of intensive care, without losing touch with my research. I know that combining everything will not be possible, but at least I’m going to try.