Where do you work?
I currently am Head of Program in Psychiatric Genetics and Lecturer of residents and medical students at the University Medical Center Utrecht.

If there is one thing you’d like to change in the field of psychiatry, what would it be?
In clinical practice, as a psychiatrist, I regularly see patients who respond to medication with many side effects but unfortunately with little effect. For example, every week I see people with a vulnerability to psychosis who get little benefit from antipsychotics but still experience fatigue or weight gain.

How do you go about improving the quality of life for these people?
With my research I hope to make a difference for these people by treating them better and predicting more accurately which medication will benefit them. I am doing this through a combination of genetic techniques, EEG studies and clinical trials. Hopefully, thanks to such studies, we can improve the quality of life of people with mental health problems.

That sounds like a full days work!
Well, luckily I manage time like no other, so I also indulge in hobbies like field hockey, tennis, padel, literature, traveling and photography (see here).

Oh! And I am the vice-president of a platform I initiated, about research and societal developments relevant to psychiatry: De Jonge Psychiater