Our new PhD student Matěj Kučera is conducting his doctoral studies jointly with the University of Amsterdam. We asked him several questions.
Why did you apply for the PhD under dual supervision?
I applied for the PhD program for several reasons. I was primarily interested in continuing my scientific activities, which I started already during my general medicine studies. Another big motivation was the possibility of PhD under dual supervision, which significantly expands the possibilities, both from a professional and a study point of view.
How is this PhD programme organized?
My PhD program is combination of epidemiological PhD at Charles University in Prague and Health technology assessment PhD at Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. As it is under dual supervision I’m studying both programs at the same time under supervision of doc. MUDr. Pavla Čermáková, Ph.D. at Department of Epidemiology at Second Medical Faculty (CU) and prof. dr. Judith E. Bosmans and dr. Hana Marie Broulikova, MSc at Faculty of Science (VU). During the year I’m working and studying at both universities as programs and curses are at both side complementary.
What is your project about?
PhD project I’m working on is consisted of two connected parts about dementia. First part is based on epidemiological analysis of incidence of dementia during last 30 years and analysis of the role of risk factors in development of cognitive disorders and cognitive decline in the Czech Republic. Second part is mostly about Cost-effectiveness and other benefits of diagnosing dementia timely in context of situation in the Czech Republic.
Who are you working with and how will this programme help you enlarge your professional network?
I’m currently mostly working with my supervisors that I’ve already mentioned and with their working groups. All three of my supervisors are experts in their science fields which still aren’t that common in the Czech Republic especially in the case of health technology assessment. PhD provides me opportunity to meet other researchers with same interests from around the whole world.
What are your goals for the PhD?
My main goal is to expand my scientific skills and knowledge in the field of epidemiology and health technology assessment as much as possible. PhD gives you opportunity to work on scientific work on high level which can help you grow as a scientist or physician so you can navigate yourself much better in current state of evidence-based medicine. I think that this would be extremely important for the future as the dynamics of new scientific knowledge is much faster.
Which skills are you planning to acquire?
In epidemiology is my plan to expand my knowledge in analysis of extensive health-care registers and incidence analysis. In the field of Health technology assessment I will try to learn how to estimate cost-effectiveness of health care interventions. In general I would like to improve my academic skills such as teaching, article writing etc.
What is the greatest added value of this PhD programme for you?
Even thought it might sound as a cliché the greatest added value of this PhD programme is that I can do work, that I really enjoy and with people that are experts in this field.
How is covid influencing your stay?
As I’m supposed to be at the internship at VU until the end of October I’m frequently controlling the epidemiological situation in both the Netherlands and the Czech Republic as well, but that is from covid related issues only thing going on. Course of Health-economic evaluation I’m studying here is very well organized. Even though it is mostly face to face all mandatory measures are met.
How do you think will the PhD programme influence your future career as a scientist?
PhD programme will vastly influence my future career not only on the level of science skills but also in network expansion of other professionals in the field of epidemiology and economic evaluation.
