At Ghent University, we strive to educate people who dare to think about the challenges of tomorrow. For that purpose, we provide education that is embedded in six strategic objectives: Think Broadly, Keep Researching, Cultivate Talent, Contribute, Extend Horizons, Opt for Quality.
Ghent University continuously focuses on quality assurance and quality culture. The Ghent University's quality assurance system offers information on each study programme’s unique selling points, and on its strengths and weaknesses with regard to quality assurance.

More information:

Ghent University's Education Objectives

Quality Assurance at Ghent University

1. “Together Towards Responsible Care” – this is the overarching mission of the Specialist Medicine programme and the 31 main subjects it contains. It is a mission that can only be achieved by using the advanced Master’s programme to train basic medical practitioners into becoming critical and self-questioning health care providers who are able to work in inter- and multidisciplinary teams.
2. The Specialist Medicine programme promotes talent development. The curriculum leaves room for specialist medical practitioner in training (in Dutch: arts-specialist in opleiding – ASO) to make choices according to their own preferences and future career choices. In addition, our programme stimulates mentorship in all of its 31 main subjects, so that every specialist medical practitioner in training has their own mentor. There is also a hotline for burn-out-related problems.
3. We heavily invest in a transparent communication culture , focusing on an effective information flow on our programme’s structure and contents. The website http://www.msg.ugent.be always contains the most up-to-date information. Important changes are communicated regularly via a newsletter.
4. Stakeholder involvement of our specialist medical practitioners in training (in Dutch: ASO), our alumni, and the professional field is structurally embedded in our organization. We use various channels to promote that involvement further. Among other things, stakeholder involvement is realized through the Programme Committee, the Internal Quality Assurance Unit, and the different steering groups and task forces that help shape the Specialist Medicine programme.

1. As laid down by decree, the curriculum focuses on the four professional roles a specialist medical practitioner in training (in Dutch: ASO) needs to fulfil, i.e. medical practitioner, manager, communicator and scientist. Our programme combines theoretical course units and academic assignments with hands-on professional experience in a hospital setting under supervision of a work placement mentor (i.e. the so-called workplace learning).
2. Our programme places great store by professionalization opportunities for our lecturers/trainers, and organizes train-the-trainer sessions for all medical practitioners who supervise ASOs. These sessions cover a wide range of themes but all work towards the same goal: how to create powerful learning environments. Examples of topics are: constructive feedback with a focus on growth, transparent assessments, efficient and effective skills acquisition. These highly specific sessions are much appreciated.
3. Upon enrolment all ASOs are given access to the electronic portfolio MedBook. Working with this portfolio ensures that both ASOs and lecturers/trainers have a good view of the programme’s contents and realizations. The tool also incorporates a feedback component into daily clinical activities. Our ASOs find MedBook a useful tool and framework for their training.
4. A charter based on interuniversity consultations lays down a number of principles to guarantee that ASOs receive high-quality training. The charter lays down a number of principles for the Specialist Medicine programme. It clearly sketches the mutual expectations of ASOs and their trainers.

1. Although we are bound by complex legal contours with a strong impact on professional reality in terms of workload, we strive towards a more balanced workload for our ASOs. We realize that our ASOs are under a lot of pressure and invest in improving mental well-being and optimal training and working conditions. We take this up with various consultation bodies on a interuniversity and federal level (among others).
2. We invest heavily in detecting the quality of our internship providers. By means of the interuniversity ABC-survey we gather a wealth of feedback from our ASOs on the various university and non-university internship providers. The survey yields three ABC reports: 1) local internship supervisors receive a report on the quality of their own internship service (provided that a minimum of three respondents took the survey to ensure anonymity), 2) co-ordinating internship supervisors receive a report on the quality of their internships, and 3) an overall report is sent to the programme board at each university and the interuniversity consultation body. The purpose is to discuss and follow up on the reports at each (policy) level. In addition, we organise regular focus group sessions with our ASOs to complement our quantitative data with qualitative findings. It is one step in keeping abreast of new developments and guaranteeing premium-quality internships for our ASOs. We want to continue to invest in a stronger and more systematic monitoring of our internships providers.
3. Among our specialist medical practitioners in training (ASOs), there is demand for more internationalisation opportunities. We are sympathetic to their arguments but are bound by restrictions imposed on us by national requirements for professional recognition. We engage ourselves to inform our ASOs better about the opportunities per speciality. We also invest in additional actions to integrate internationalization opportunities into the curriculum, and take into account our ASOs’ feedback and suggestions.

This study programme is accredited by the Accreditation Organization of the Netherlands and Flanders (Dutch: NVAO). Accreditation was extended following the positive outcome of the institutional review in 2022. Programme quality was validated by a quality review, i.e. a screening of the Education Monitor by the Education Quality Board. The Quality Assurance Resolution (in Dutch) can be found here.

This information was last updated on 01/02/2023.
In case of questions or suggestions with regard to the publicly available information, please contact the study programme.