Maastricht University, Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences
The Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences started on January 1st, 2007. The faculty was the result of a merger between the Faculty of Health Sciences and the Faculty of Medicine.
The Faculty of Medicine was the first faculty to be established at Maastricht University. The University was officially established on the 9th of January 1976, although the first medical students began their studies in September 1974. The Faculty of Medicine was the second in the world that applied the Problem-Based Learning method. The other faculties of Maastricht University, i.e. Arts and Culture, Economics and Business Administration, General Sciences, Health Sciences, Law, and Psychology adopted educational systems and research organisations akin to that of the Faculty of Medicine.
The Faculty developed into a community with a staff of around 1200 (academics, administrative and support staff), and approximately 1950 medical students. Since 1992 staff and students are based at the complex of buildings of the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Faculty of Psychology, and the University Hospital (Academisch Ziekenhuis Maastricht) which opened in 1991.
The Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences offered a broad range of disciplines that made the faculty unique, not only in the Netherlands, but also in Europe. The format allowed students to integrate their discipline and research work into all areas related to society, sickness and health. By way of research and specific (undergraduate and postgraduate) education, the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences contributed to quality improvement in health care.
At the moment the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences has some 4,500 students enrolled in its broad spectrum of educational programmes leading to a Bachelor's and/or Master's degree.
To ensure a good quality of health care not only doctors are needed, nurses and paramedics are important, too. But also the expertise of other professionals is essential.
Teaching Methode: Problem Based Learning
All programmes of the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences in Maastricht use an educational approach that is different from traditional teaching methods. This method is known as Problem-Based Learning (PBL). It is a highly student-centered, rather than teacher-centered approach in which independent learning is stimulated and rewarded. Instead of a lecture-based, disciplinary driven curriculum, programmes are structured along thematic, interdisciplinary lines. The basic study material does not consist of lectures and readers, but is made up of a concise collection of programmatic case studies accompanied by relevant literature suggestions. Accordingly, students continually define their own learning objectives through a stimulating process of problem analysis, goal setting, theory application and problem solving.
The Problem-Based Learning method is applied as follows: The starting point is a particular problem, which is presented to the students. A tutorial group attempts to produce an analysis of the problem by applying their own knowledge. Members of the group throughout the discussions raise various questions. It is on the basis of this process that learning objectives for the individual study are formulated. Each student gathers relevant information as specified by the learning objectives. The students work on these tasks, either on an individual or group basis, during the interval between the two tutorial group meetings: they read literature, watch videotapes, and consult staff members.
At the next group meeting they compare their findings and discuss whether they have a better understanding of the problem now. Sometimes the information they have gathered is sufficient enough to solve the problem while at other times the students realise that they need to formulate new questions and continue with their studies. Empirical studies on the effects of this approach, conducted at the Maastricht University, support the theory that students who received their training within a Problem-Based Learning setting are better equipped for problem solving in actual practice.