My first few weeks at the EMGO Institute

April 2, 2007 was my first day of work here at the EMGO Research Institute at the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. (See my office in the picture; people tell me that there are two main differences compared to the former director: there is a computer and its certainly less organised...)

My first experiences have all been positive. I immediately had a busy schedule mainly to get to know as many people within the EMGO institute and the VU University Medical Center in a short period of time.

I was introduced to the EMGO bureau staff where EMGO's crucial financial, organizational and ICT support is concentrated.

I had meetings with representatives of the EMGO's facilitating committees (i.e. the quality committee, the scientific committee, the education committee), with program leaders of the four research programs within EMGO (see www.emgo.nl), and with a number of other key people within the intitute, as well as with EMGO external advisory board.

I also joined a two day policy meeting with the Board of the VU University Medical Center to talk about the policy strategies of our medical center for the next 5 years.

In these weeks my earlier impressions of EMGO as an excellent research institute with many excellent researchers was confirmed. In these first few weeks I have also experienced that EMGO offers a friendly and cooperative work environment.