Conference Matters 144

MY FIRST CONFERENCE

'It has given me new

Do you remember the first conference you attended? Meeting thousands of strangers in a big hall with sweaty hands? This time, Conference Matters looks at the conference from the viewpoint of the first-time visitor.

By Jildau Cuperus

Pieter Swart, 26, traded his life on the family farm in South Africa for a study in Leuven and settled in the north of the Netherlands last Sep tember, where he started working as a psychia trist in training at the University Medical Center Groningen. “I was a bit afraid of the Groningen down-to-earthiness that people always talk about, but so far I’ve experienced it as very pleasant. Furthermore, psychiatric care in the Netherlands is very well organised in contrast to South Africa, where a backlog in funding leads to inhumane situations. Although the Netherlands also has some issues, you can at least do your job here as a psychiatrist.” Swart doesn’t plan to leave the Netherlands anytime soon. “There’s still so much to discover and learn here. I think the Netherlands has a lot to offer me and vice versa.” In the company of at least 20 close colleagues, he attended his very first conference in April 2024: the three-day Spring Conference of the Netherlands Psychiatric Association (NVvP). A whole new world opened up for him when he walked into the large hall of MECC Maastricht.

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