Meet the team: Jesper van Breeschoten

In this series of blog posts we will introduce you to the researchers and health professionals of the Behavioural Sciences Unit – including information about their education and training, career direction, and words of wisdom about working in psycho-oncology.

Please describe your education and training
I completed my Bachelor of Pharmacy at the Utrecht University in 2015 and I am currently doing the Master of Pharmacy at the same university. As part of my Masters’ program I have to complete six months of pharmaceutical-related research which I am undertaking in the Behavioural Sciences Unit (BSU) and Centre for Health Economics Research and Evaluation (CHERE) at the University of Technology. In addition to my studies I am involved in organising the European Pharmacy Student Congress, due to take place in 2018, and work part-time in a public pharmacy. 

What is your current role?
I am currently undertaking a research project at the BSU in collaboration with CHERE. My current role is to analyse data from the Long-Term Follow-Up Study of childhood cancer survivors. Using this data I will investigate healthcare utilisation in childhood cancer survivors and what factors influence the utilisation of healthcare.

What are the ‘best’ parts of your current role?
The best part is the variety of work I am doing and the people I work with. During my six month stay I will be located three days a week at CHERE and at two days at the BSU. At both locations there are so many researchers with different academic backgrounds. I think this will broaden my academic view which I am very excited about! Being in Australia as an intern is a great way to acquire new experiences.

What are the most challenging parts of your current role?
The most challenging part of my role at the moment is adapting to a new country and new work environment.  In addition, as I’m at the early stages of my project I haven’t done much dataset cleaning, organising or analysing yet. These things are all completely new to me but I see it as a challenge to learn these new skills.

Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?
I see myself as either a PhD student, or employed at a pharmaceutical company or hospital. I haven’t decided this just yet; it depends on my current and upcoming internships. These internships will take place at hospitals, public pharmacies and I am currently looking into the possibility of performing an internship at a health insurance company.
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What advice would you have for someone wanting to follow a similar path in terms of their study/career?
Don’t feel constrained if you want to study pharmacy but don’t want to become a public pharmacist, as your study path can be much broader. However you must be interested in chemistry, the effect of medicines on the human body and enjoy contact with patients. I think it’s quite unlikely that I’ll end up working as a public pharmacist, but my study will put me in good position for a career in research or in a pharmaceutical company.