Oleksandra Ivashchenko
Oleksandra graduated in 2012 at the Taras Shevchenko National University, MSc Applied Physics. During her second year of the master's programme, she started working at Materialise N.V., a Belgian company specialising in biomechanics and prototyping. Here, she learned a lot about the commercial side of healthcare. As she was looking for a way to make actual clinical impact, she looked for a project combining Research & Development and clinical impact. This led her to start a PhD project in 2013 at TU Delft/MILabs B.V. through TRACE'nTREAT, a programme of Marie Curie ITN.
"During this project, I came to realise how undeveloped clinical medical imaging was. These discoveries motivated me to return to the clinical world, which I did as a postdoctoral researcher."
During her career, it became clear to Oleksandra that it is important to be a medical specialist in order to make an impact the Dutch healthcare system and improve patient care. In the Netherlands, one such medical specialist who represents medical equipment, including imaging, is the medical physicist. Since 2018, Oleksandra has therefore been working as a medical physicist, first at Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC) and currently at the University Medical Centre Groningen. Here, her responsibilities include the coordination and strategic development of imaging facilities.
"The academic world is driven by a more fundamental question, everyone wants to know if a new idea is feasible. But my focus shifted to 'what is the most effective way of doing it?', 'will it benefit the hospital?', 'how to improve our patient care, yet retain the business case?' None of these questions were addressed during my university education, definitely not from a healthcare perspective." Therefore, with the help of the Marina van Damme grant, Oleksandra plans to further develop her global project management skills, by pursuing an MBA in Health Care Management at the University of Amsterdam.
"I am certain the MBA will help me achieve my goal faster and accelerate my career growth by broadening my horizon and gaining a better understanding of the business side perspective within healthcare."