Spring Term

Hey all,

So after only a short weekend break (I think many of us could have used a week-long break) the time came to start the second semester, the spring term of my MSc. This module we’ll be following five different courses, one of which will last the whole semester, and the other four half a semester. I now following Health Economics, Management Challenges, and Managing Change and Innovation. Let me give you a brief overview of what it’s about:

Health Economics: as the name already says so, you will be studying economics. Mostly related to health care, but also a lot of wider applicable topics such as supply and demand curves. It’s an interesting course, but since I have no background in economics at all, I find it quite challenging. The HE class not only consists of International Health Management students, also the Public Health MSc students are following this course. This means that we are all put in new groups. In these groups we need to economically evaluate a certain health care initiative, like a certain operation or drug for example.

Management Challenges: a very dynamic course in which you mostly focus on case studies about health care management issues and how you would go about solving them. These lectures last for 2.5 hours, which is half an hour longer than ‘normal’ lectures. On the 8th of February, we will visit Kingston Hospital to interview health care professionals and managers. At the end of the day we will have to present our findings about a certain topic to our class mates and the health care professionals. These presentations are on different topics, my group for example has to present on improving the patient experience.

Managing Change and Innovation: this course is also really interesting, it shows you how health care deals with innovation and what is needed to successfully manage such innovation. I think this is very relevant for one’s future career since it is very likely that health care innovations will increasingly emerge and the need to successfully implement these will increase. For this course, we had to do a minute madness presentation which meant that you had exactly one minute to present on a certain innovation. I presented on the K1 AD syringe, an auto-disable syringe preventing multiple uses of a syringe (which can be dangerous in terms of e.g. spreading diseases). I was running a bit late that day and when I walked into the class, my slide had just came up, which led to me presenting with my coat still on, but luckily it went well. For this course, there is also some groupwork: a poster presentation on an innovation. I am very excited about this, because I love to use photoshop to design posters etcetera. Some groups want to use Prezi (an online presentation form) for this, and although Prezi is awesome – if you haven’t heard of it, go check it out – I don’t think that is appropriate. It will then be quite difficult to present your innovation to people that approach you at different times, what inevitably will happen, because everybody is just walking around checking out the posters.

In conclusion, all three course have so far been very interesting, though it is very intense. Might even say that it is more intense than the first semester… On a completely different note, if you are planning to come to Imperial and you are from a very warm and sunny clothing, during these months thermo wear will be your best friend haha, it’s freezing!

I’m off to another lecture, so I have to stop writing now, enjoy your day!

Anneclaire

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