Exchange projects

THIM facilitates exchange programs to offer students and staff the opportunity to broaden their horizons, discover new cultures, and improve their language and communication skills. We see these exchange programs as an enrichment of the educational program and as a way to promote international cooperation. Moreover, an exchange program can be an unforgettable experience for students and can contribute to their personal development and growth.

In the reports below, exchanges are described that THIM facilitated in the past year.

Students exchange THIM-NL and THIM-CH

In year three THIM organizes an international minor week in which students of THIM-CH can study in The Netherlands for a week and students of THIM-NL can study in Switzerland for a week. This study year 9 students of THIM-NL and 6 students of THIM-CH participated in this exchange.

THIM-NL students in Switzerland

Highlights were the lessons at THIM-CH, the sceneries from our rental house, cheese fondue, and visit to an ice hockey match of HC Davos.

THIM-CH students in the Netherlands

Highlights were Virtual reality at THIM, ‘The Rum-Club in Utrecht’, the nightlife at Utrecht and baking poffertjes (small pancakes).

On 25 and 26 January 2023 Dr. Ron Clijsen and Dr. Erich Hohenauer of THIM-CH gave a workshop on scientific data collection, interpretation of these data and the use of these within the physiotherapy practice at THIM-NL. In this workshop students measured, among others, blood flow of the m. vastus medialis after massage gun application and vertical jump performance after partial body cryotherapy. After the morning session where data were collected, students presented their measurements in the afternoon session. An interesting workshop in which students learned to collect data using high end technology and a beautiful expression of the international connection between the two schools.

As part of increasing internationalisation within THIM University of Applied Sciences in Physiotherapy, director Thim van der Laan and internationalisation coordinator Kevin Engelman visited one of the new cooperation partners, Father Muller Medical College (FMMC) in Mangalore (India). The FMMC is a medical college where students are educated to become doctors, nurses, physiotherapists or speech therapists, among others. However, it is not only an educational institute, but also a hospital. In this hospital they offer a wide range of specialities, such as oncology, cardiology, pulmonary, musculoskeletal, neurological and pediatrics. One of the strengths of this institute is that they combine education with working on real-life patients in the physiotherapy and rehabilitation department of the hospital. This report describes the experiences of this visit to FMMC and India, from Kevin Engelman’s point of view.

After a stopover at Mumbai, we arrived at Mangalore airport. A driver from the FMMC then guided us through the honking, busy traffic of Mangalore, overtaking pedestrians, scooters, rickshaws and cars and avoiding oncoming traffic and randomly crossing people and street dogs. Impossible overtaking manoeuvres seem possible here and our taxi seems to narrow more than once like The Night Bus in Harry Potter, allowing us to slip through. India's traffic was our first culture shock.

After a ceremonial warm welcome at FMMC we were shown around the hospital and campus. In the hospital, as in the rest of India, the difference between rich and poor was evident. Rich patients get a private room equipped with air conditioning in a separate wing of the hospital. due to the mix of doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and students, there is a lot of staff present per patient. As a result, patient care looks very personal and tailored. Nevertheless, with an outside temperature of between 30 and 40 degrees Celsius, high humidity, smog and only few air-conditioned rooms, spending several days in a hospital bed here must be not very pleasant.

The campus has loads of medical faculties, hospital buildings, student residential complexes (where 90% of the students stay during their studies), a church, mortuary, library, simulation centre, sports centre and an impressive conference hall, which can hold more than 1,500 people and would be the envy of many theaters in the Netherlands. Curious glances from patients, staff, students and visitors towards us gave the impression that not much Westerners come here. We concluded that FMMC offers their students a very good mix between education and patient care and that we can safely send THIM students here for a short internship (minimum 2 weeks).

On the way back home we had a very impressive city tour in Mumbai. This city with officially around 22 million inhabitants, but unofficially more than 30 million according to our guide, is a city with a great contrast between rich and poor. 45% of the people live in wretched conditions in the slums, working 12 hours a day seven days a week, for example, recycling plastic waste with little prospect of a future. But on the outskirts of these slums stands a 27storey private house owned by India's richest man and his family, built for a sloppy €2 billion. This is absolutely incompatible for us.

In the end, what stayed with me from our visit to India? The traffic, the crowds, the many strong smells and the smog that lies as a grey translucent blanket over the city of Mumbai and to a lesser extent Mangalore. But above all, the character of the people: friendly, humble, obliging, hospitable and incredibly intrigued by us tall Westerners. Interested in an internship at FMMC? Contact kevin@thim.nl

In February 2023, teacher Ingrid Veenendaal (THIM-NL) participated in an exchange project to DEUSTO University in San Sebastian (Spain) funded from an Erasmus+ grant. This is a grant that enables a short learning path for a teacher in an international setting. Two students from THIM-NL are also currently studying for six months at DEUSTO University with an Erasmus+ grant. This report describes her experience.

Deusto University in San Sebastian offers physiotherapy, sports science, pedagogy, economy, business and social courses and has a very good reputation throughout the country. A university for which people are willing to travel. In a beautiful new building of only two years old, students take their classes. The university is very innovative and international. An eye-catching characteristic of Deusto University is their mobility module in the second semester of the third year, where all courses are offered in English. This encourages international exchange which is an important goal of Deusto. Students are stimulated to go on international exchanges to gain a broader perspective on the profession. At the time of my visit, there were 120 students from abroad studying at Deusto. A great partner for international exchange of THIM students and teachers.

In addition, San Sebastian is a beautiful city that has much to offer in terms of cuisine, sport and culture. I went out for a nice dinner with our two THIM students studying there for six months and they were very happy with their choice. All in all, an incredibly fun experience, but above all a fantastic opportunity for THIM students to further develop themselves not only in the profession, but also on a personal level in a beautiful city.

Report on 5 months exchange of THIM-students in San Sebastian from Dutch students Olga and Sanne

Hola chicos y chicas,

Sanne and Olga here from Spain with a brief update on our study currently at Deusto University in San Sebastian. We are now already in the sixth week of classes here and tomorrow we have our first physio exam in our course

Physiotherapy and Ultrasound in the Critically Ill Patient. The exam will be in the form of an escape room. The build-up of the program here is quite differently from that in the Netherlands, with students here having already chosen more of their specialization direction. This means there are topics they know more about, like ICU, but also topics we know more about, like sports physiotherapy. In addition, they work much more with Ultrasound here than in the Netherlands. All in all, we learn a lot about the physiotherapeutical approach here in Spain and how it differs from the Netherlands. Very interesting!

In addition, the experience of living in another country is very educational and cool. You get to know a culture very quickly. The nice but also the difficult thing about living in San Sebastian is that they speak two languages here: Spanish and Basque. Many people don't speak English. This sometimes makes communication difficult, but it also makes us learn Spanish words and sentences faster.

The weather here is already super nice. We have already had days where it was almost 30 degrees. Great for learning (chilling) on the beach. All in all, a super cool experience! Adios.